Hot holiday salad bowl

I need some down time after all the chocolate and candy!

There still some more chocolatey posts to come just in time for your New Years celebrations, but I feel a little break is in order, otherwise I wont appreciate it. All the sweet food can get pretty overwhelming...healthy or not!  I'm actually looking forward to 'de-cluttering' the fridge and my baking supplies and stripping back to basics for a few weeks come January, though I wonder how long it will be before cake kicks back in :-)

On boxing day, my whole family went out for a walk, I did take my camera with me but to be honest is was cloudy and overcast so the resulting photos left much to be desired.  When we arrived home mid afternoon...a little cold and wet...a big lunch was in order to keep us going until supper time snacks and games.

A bowl of pan-fried christmas leftover salad made the perfect offering. My dad and I topped ours with leftover chestnut roast crumbles (pictured) whilst my mum, brother and sister topped there's with leftover chicken and bacons strips, this salad makes the perfect based for veggies and meaties alike.

The simple dressing and festive clementines gave a lovely sweet touch.  The dressing and the basis for this salad was originally inspired by this recipe and then I added some extras of my own not so dissimilar to my favourite sprouts recipe.

Recipe: Christmas salad

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped/shredded sprouts
3 medium white potatoes- cubed
1 onion or 4 small shallots- sliced
1 medium courgette- grated
2 packed cups lettuce leaves/spinach (I used a mix of both)
2 clementines segmented
handful of toasted walnuts/pecans
optional toppings of choice (see notes above)
dressing: 2 tbs each olive oil, balsamic vinegar, maple syrup, 1 tsp dijon mustard and the clementine zest.

Method:

Panfry the sprouts, potato and shallots in a little oil for approx.10 minutes (depending on size of chunks) until almost cooked. Add the grated courgette and continue to cook for a couple of minutes.

Meanwhile mix the dressing ingredients together well and decant into a small bowl or jug.

Assemble the salad bowls, dividing the lettuce/spinach between the bowls. When cooked through, add the hot salad mixture to the centre of each bowl.

In the same pan add a handful of nuts and toast them for a couple of minutes whilst you finish assembling the salads. Add the topping of choice i.e nit roast crumbles (these can be hot or cold) and then the clementine and toasted nuts.

Drizzle a little dressing to serve.

For further guidance on making gluten free choices please see this post.

For tips and info on recipe measurement conversions, ingredients, substitutions and the methods behind how I do things.... check out my 'baking tips' tab at the top of the page.