Flurries of meals await as we approach the festive season.

Should you be hosting, here are some steps to help you plan your meal and support your spread.

Create a welcome feast by considering the balance of your meal.

The traditional turkey and roast potatoes are all heavy, long cooked baked dishes.   If you want your diners to feel great after eating, energised and even still awake, I advise including lighter side dishes as accompaniments.

Raw or lightly cooked vegetable sides give a contrasting quality of freshness and helps bestow balance on the meal.  Make the flavour ooze with a tangy sour tune, so much the better!  The sour flavour really lifts a meal, conferring even more fresh aliveness.  Dress your salad or greens with lemon or lime juice, or the zest from a citrusy fruit.

Suggested dishes to go alongside your traditional feast..

  • Fast cooked greens of brussel sprouts, broccoli, kale or cavelo nero.
    Blanch the vegetables in a pan of boiling water with a pinch of sea or rock salt.  The salt prevents the nutrients leaching out of the vegetables and turning the water all murky.  Cook the vegetables like this until they are tender.  For leaves such as kale and cavelo nero they will simply need a moment to submerge in the water and turn a vibrant green colour.  For sprouts and broccoli they will need a few minutes until a fork can pierce them easily.

  • A leafy salad
    Rocket and watercress have a pronounced bitter flavour which will be a great flavour contrast to the rest of the meal.  A small amount of raw onion serves to add a little pungent taste.  Incorporate a tangy scent from lemon or lime in your dressing.

  • One of my acclaimed pressed salads of coleslaw, cucumber salad or beetroot, fennel & apple.
    The pressed salads foster the good gut bacteria and serve as a digestive aid assisting the assimilation and absorption of a meal.

  • Pickles
    Pickles produced in the traditional lacto fermentation style, like pressed salads, also harness the lacto bacilli and help the digestion of the rest of the meal.

Here are three of my favourite dressings permeating with the freshness of lemon juice.

Do let me know if you have any questions at all and I wish you delicious dining over the festive break.

 

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