My children experience the anticipation and excitement of the festive season twice over, on the 25th of December and again on the 7th of January for Orthodox Christmas. Although my children will receive half of their gifts tomorrow, it is in January when we have our main Christmas celebration. This involves a beautiful church service, a sumptuous Christmas lunch feast with family and close friends and the remaining gifts being opened by all the children.

The littlest ones have always been especially thrilled that “Santa” makes a return trip to our house, with some of their school friends wishing they too could have a double Christmas. There have been hiccups with this arrangement. For example, I have in the past forgotten to eat the special meal left out for the jolly gent in red and have resorted to hiding the plate behind cushions as the children bound down the hallway, pretending that Santa’s reindeer’s gobbled the lot. Before I start wrapping their gifts, I must rave about the salad pictured above which was incredible! Flavour and texture made with just a handful of ingredients. Another winning combination from one of my favourite and reliable cooking resources. 

My children certainly gobbled down this evening dinner with gusto. One of the dishes I made was a Prawn, Avocado and Iceberg Lettuce Salad which is basically a larger version of the elegantly photographed Garlic Prawn Cocktail recipe in this month’s The Australian Women’s Weekly Magazine. I have included a copy of the actual page from the magazine’s Christmas cookbook lift-out to show what this dish looks like when made for a special occasion. It would be an ideal starter on a warm Christmas day. 

The recipe below is for four people served as an entrée. I doubled the quantities because I was cooking for seven and presented the dish in my favourite wide Portmeirion ceramic  bowl.