Dinner Salad with Chicken, Gorgonzola & Pomegranate

Recently (possibly after perusing food pictures on Pinterest), I had a vision of a delicious salad that could be a whole dinner. I made a sketch to demonstrate.

Basically, lovely greens with all manner of delicious toppings. I forgot to draw pomegranate seeds, but they were also a critical part of my plan. Here's my recipe!

Ingredients:

• Orange juice, such as 1 orange's worth squeezed
• Grape seed oil or favorite salad dressing oil
• White balsamic vinegar
• Salt & pepper
• Arugula, washed and torn
• Salad greens mix, such as Olivia's mix with baby spinach
• 2-3 chicken breasts
• Ghee or butter or oil, your choice
• 1 pomegranate, firm skin
• 1 ripe avocado, cut into chunks
• Gorgonzola or blue cheese, ready to crumble
• Cucumber, cut into chunks
• Radishes, cut into chunks
• Pumpkin seeds

Assembly:

1. To prepare dressing, heat orange juice over the stove in small pot until reduced by at least half. Let cool, then combine with grape seed oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Heat ghee/butter/oil in a cast iron skillet or nonstick pan. Add chicken breasts and turn to medium-low heat. Cook until finished throughout (you can slice it open to check) and a slight golden crust has started to form. Cool and then cut into chunks.
3. Meanwhile, heat smaller cast iron skillet or pan and toast pumpkin seeds at medium heat. It takes about 3 minutes for them to start to crackle and seize up and brown, which is perfect.
4. Meanwhile meanwhile, remove arils from the pomegranate. I read that one way to do this is to cut the pomegranate in half, turn it over a bowl and whack the skin side with a wooden spoon until all of the arils fall out into the bowl. I'm not sure if this is the most efficient method, but it is very satisfying.
5. You are ready to assemble the salad! I set out all of the ingredients separately, including washed arugula and salad mix, and then had each person pick and arrange as desired.

Above, deosil from bottom left: radishes, pomegranate arils, cucumber, salad dressing, avocado, random cornichons

Above: chicken chunks, toasted pumpkin seeds, salad mix, arugula, gorgonzola is camouflaged in the upper left-hand corner

Above: young girl's plate: chicken, pomegranate, radish, greens

My plate: EVERYTHING. Particularly the crumbled gorgonzola, yum. With the green lettuce and the red pomegranate, it looks kind of festive, no?

Do you make dinner salads? What makes them "dinner" ? I used to think it was crumbled bacon and pieces of hard-boiled egg.