Crisp lime avocado and chick pea salad

This time of year is full of parties, drinks, rich food and little to no exercise, so for the annual Christmas potluck at work I like to make a light crisp salad to counteract all the damage I am doing to my body.

This year I am into avacodo's in a big way and often have a salad with avacado in it for my lunch or dinner, so I decided to make an avacado salad with a south west twist.  This made a potluck salad for 12.

One large avacado chopped into large chunks
Grated zest from one lime
One can of chick peas
Small bunch of cilantro chopped.
3 Hearts of romaine lettuce

Dressing ingredients

• Juice from 1 lime
• 2 tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar or a good white wine vinegar with a pinch of sugar
• 1 bunch of green onions chopped
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic grated or crushed
• 1 teaspoon of salt

Put the avacado in to the bottom of a large bowl and add the zest of the lime.

Pot luck broccoli and grape salad

Another pot luck at work this week to celebrate the 50th birthday of someone who I have worked with for 28 years!  We were both in our 20's and before children, together we travelled to London, San Fransisco and Seattle, and spent far too much time shopping.  When we both grew middle aged is beyond me.  We had a spa themed pot luck to celebrate and honour our newest member to the 6th decade of life.

I brought a salad, as potlucks are always shy on healthy dishes and I really like broccoli salad, also this is a good salad for taking somewhere as it actually needs to sit in its dressing for a while.

• 2 heads of broccoli broken in to small florets
• 1/2 red onion thinly sliced and chopped
• 1/2 cup of toasted slivered almonds
• 1 cup of chopped green grapes

Dressing

• 1/3 cup of mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup of plain yogurt (or all mayonnaise)
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 4 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of milk (or enough to get the right consistency)

Combine the salad ingredients except the almonds in a salad bowl.

Toast the almonds and when cooled place them in a Ziploc bag.

Roasted Vegetables lasagna

I was cooking a couple of items for a colleague at work for her husbands birthday.  She could probably have done this herself, but with me taking the main courses, she could throw together some salads and decorate and hit the party rested and relaxed.  The food theme was to be Italian, so I made a couple of dishes of pasta al forno ready to put in the oven 30 minutes before dinner I also made a vegetarian lasagna using roasted vegetables.

I am not a big lasagna or even pasta eater myself, but it is a favourite in my family.  Having said that I do like roasted vegetable lasagna better than the regular meat version, and so this is what I made as a vegetarian option for their dinner.

1 Asian eggplant sliced, you could use a regular one, but I prefer the mildness of the Asian type
1 zucchini sliced
3 large bell peppers or 8 small ones
1/2 fennel sliced
8 small tomatoes halved
About 1/4 cup of olive oil
Sprig of rosemary

1 cup of ricotta
3 cups of shredded mozzarella

Slice all the vegetables fairly thickly so they do not completely fall apart, and lay in a large roasting tin. Sprinkle with the rosemary salt and pepper toss and then drizzle with the olive oil.  Place in a 400 oven for about 1/2 an hour, stirring up half way through.

Asian flavoured slaw

On Friday we had our annual Christmas pot luck, we celebrate most things in my department like birthdays, retirements, marriages and anything else we can think of with a pot luck.  But the Christmas one is different we set a table with table cloths, decorations and Christmas crackers, people make even more of an effort with their contributions.

Then at the end we do our secret Santa gift exchange, it is a highlight for me and gets the Christmas season off to a good start. I usually bring a salad as any good buffet needs something a little lighter to counter all the rich and calorie laden options. This salad has become a favourite, though I do change it up a little using different fruit and nuts. This year I used pomegranate and cashews, but I have used mango and papaya and almonds and peanuts.

1/2 white cabbage shredded
1 red onion very thinly sliced
2 red peppers thinly sliced
1 cup of toasted nuts (cashews this time)
2 cups of fruit sliced in most cases (pomegranate this time)
1/2 cup of chopped cilantro (optional as there are those that hate cilantro)

quinoa tabbouleh

The baby of our department turned 30 this weekend, so the department decided to have a pot luck to celebrate.  We hold a pot luck to celebrate almost anything. In fact one of the most important questions when interviewing for a position is "what is your speciality for pot lucks?"( Not really but it should be). I had said I was going to bring a salad, but  I was away on the weekend so I wanted to make something that would not take me very long and would hold well with out going soggy.

Originally I decided to make tabbouleh, but the only bulgher wheat I could find was very course and so I decided to make the same salad but substitute quinoa for the grain.

A close up of raw quinoa