Seasonal Sundays (Week 47) Holiday Salads

Seasonal Sundays on a ... Saturday? It happens every so often, with a holiday looming and many of us spending the weekend making lists, washing glassware, buying groceries, prepping for a big week. I'm here to help! This week I'm featuring seven wintry salads, all Thanksgiving friendly but also ones to carry well through December. Because heaven knows, enough sugar will be within reach ... how about a little (a lot?!) more salad too?

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

~ PIN This ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

As ever, thank you for welcoming me into your InBox and RSS feed reader. It's your kitchens, your lives, your holiday tables, I conjure while writing ...

"Let's give the gift of salads!" I exhorted one December. We were just home from gift shopping and I'd made a simple winter salad for our supper.

And thus began my quest for holiday salads, some times spartan, some times sumptuous.

So let's delve right into some salads that you might only nibble on during a big Thanksgiving meal but instead will scarf down when diving into leftovers later. Salad just tastes so good after all that rich, heavy food!

But. These are winter salads, that means they're good right through the holidays for sure but even into January and February. So hang on. It's winter salad season!

PS And don't worry, if you're still working through pie ideas, see last year's collection of Thanksgiving Pie recipes. I'm mining it myself, making last-minute decisions for us.

In Praise Of ...

• ... Kids On Stage (affiliate link), part charades, part board game, all fun for ages 4 to 14 and all the way to the great-grand parents generation. Lots of laughs ...
• ... good kitchen towels (affiliate link), all cotton, real workhorses. All those pretty ones with the pretty patterns? Not worth a nickel except for good looks. I've tossed nearly all my other towels because these have zero lint, wash up like a dream and are just easy to put through a belt loop, over a shoulder, through a drawer handle, etc.
• ... a dog who made me laugh out loud when he picked his Christmas present off a shelf and carried it outside to play, cardboard label and all

Democracy Matters

The country needs calm, thoughtful and assertive voices amid the chaos inflicted by a minority hellbent on taking/retaining generational power by strangling democratic principles and equal rights. None of us have to personally change the world. We just have to do our part.

Forget the race. Are Thanksgiving tables the right place to discuss the stakes of the 2024 election? Everyone has to decide, yes or no.

But at some point really soon, we have to start talking to friends and family members again because Trump et al aren't hiding their plans to upend our country with authoritarian rule. You don't think that there are no plans for Don Jr and Ivanka, one family and an entire generation of grifters and authoritarians and sycophants who bow to the former president and cater to the rich and leave the rest of us to pull up our bootstraps? We need to win and win decisively.

In the last week, I've been watching the news sound off, just watching the historians and diplomats and writers and democracy warriors. Their eyes are filled with something I can only identify as fear. Many say outright, This is 1930s Germany all over again.

Me, I intend to listen this Thanksgiving, learning where friends and family are, and why.

The Words of Wise Women

• "I've been looking up old friends I haven't seen in decades. We go for a walk. It's wonderful." ~ Our friend Claudia, age 75 and the brand-new head docent at the St. Louis Museum of Art, 11/12/23

May I Suggest ... a Link?

Let me just presume that if you're reading this, well, you're both a cook and a recipe collector. Don't the two kinda go together? And that means you tuck aside interesting recipes all over the place and then, dang, where is that chicken recipe that looked so good anyway? Here's an idea. Start a folder on your phone, call it "Kitchen Parade" or "Alanna" or whatever makes best sense to you. Then save the recipes you're most interested in right there in one place. Easy Peasy.

• Start here?
• Salad Recipes

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SEASONAL INSPIRATION: Seven Surprising Holiday Salads

• THE RECIPE Festive Kale Salad with Apple & Pomegranate A burst of color, texture and flavor for holiday meals. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Spinach Salad with Fruity Vinaigrette, Fresh Fruit & Maple-Glazed Pecans A big green salad with a rainbow of fruit. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Winter Greens Salad with Oranges, Avocado, Olives, Feta & Orange-Cumin Vinaigrette Bitter greens plus juicy oranges tossed with a long-time favorite no-oil salad dressing.
• ANOTHER TAKE Orange & Avocado Salad Simple but sumptuous. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Big Cajun Chopped Salad Don't skip the olives! (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Festive Holiday Salad My signature salad during the holidays, just ten minutes start to finish. (PIN This)

• THE RECIPE Christmas Cauliflower Healthy roasted cauliflower with ribbons of festive red and green.
• ANOTHER TAKE Healthy Red & Green Green-Bean Salad Pretty for Christmas, healthy for year-round.

• THE RECIPE Celebration Salad (Maple-Roasted Carrots with Arugula, Dill, Cranberry Vinaigrette, Pomegranate and Glazed Pecans) An exultant platter of texture, color, flavor and mood.
• ANOTHER TAKE Lucky Black-Eyed Pea Salad Ensure good fortune in the New Year.

• THE RECIPE Detox Chopped Salad The salad so good, my own sister bought a food processor just to make it.
• ANOTHER TAKE Simple Arugula Salad So simple, so sumptuous.

• THE RECIPE Christmas Tree Vegetable Platter Just wait for the compliments!
• ANOTHER TAKE Thanksgiving Turkey Vegetable Platter Tips & Techniques & Timing.

• THE COLLECTION Salad Recipes Super-organized, of course.
• AND ANOTHER Soup Recipes For light lunches and hearty suppers.

What's New?! (Oh Look! Another Big Salad!)

Wondering about a recipe from the last while? Check Recent Recipes from Kitchen Parade and Recent Vegetable Recipes from A Veggie Venture.

• THE RECIPE Big Italian Chopped Salad A messy jumble of our favorite Mediterranean ingredients. Buon appetito! (PIN This)

The Kitchen Parade Almanac: Looking Ahead ...

• November 23rd (early! nice!) - American Thanksgiving
• December 1st - Alanna's Unofficial First Day of Winter
• December 1 - 23 PikkuJoulu (Finnish "Little Christmas")
• December 21st - Winter Solstice (Official First Day of Winter)

Looking Back ...

• My Dream Thanksgiving (Week 46) (PIN This)
• Sweet Potato Season (Week 45) (PIN This)
• November Bucket List (Week 44) (PIN This)
• Chickpeas (Week 43) (PIN This)
• Soups to Sustain the Spirit (Week 42) (PIN This)
• Special Sweets for Fall (Week 41) (PIN This)
• Fall Sides for Everyday & Canadian Thanksgiving (Week 40) (PIN This)
• Cooking with Apples (Week 39) (PIN This)
• Burger Season (Week 38) (PIN This)
• Fall Is for Vegetarians (Week 37) (PIN This)

Déjà Vu ... the Thanksgiving Collection

Something useful ... or thoughtful ... or interesting ... or fun ... from Seasonal Sundays, this same week.

• 2019: My "Pick One" Thanksgiving Menu, just one recipe for every course, useful for those who suffer with too-many-ideas angst and indecision.
• 2020: Thanksgiving for Two & Other Small Tables, remember 2020? But many of us live in small households, it's not all Norman Rockwell, maybe it never was.
• 2022: My Dream Thanksgiving, from someone (me!) who's been cooking Thanksgiving since she was 16!

But First? A Little Turkey Day Pre-Prep

MAKE WAY Clean the fridge, top to bottom, before loading with Thanksgiving groceries!

MAKE SOUP Before you start to cook, y'know, cuz people are gonna want food Mon-Tue-Wed too.

MAKE HAPPY Pour a glass of wine the minute the turkey goes in the oven, this one courtesy of my ever-wise sister.

Just Updated!

• THE RECIPE Cranberry Linzer Tart An impressive European fruit tart, made easy with an almond press-in crust. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Easy-Easy Jam Tart An amazing tart in just 15 minutes!

• THE RECIPE Chocolate-Almond Shortbread Cookies Almost sugar-free, great for shipping. (PIN This)
• ANOTHER TAKE Family Shortbread All the family tips and tricks to make simple, ethereal English shortbread.

Don't Be a Stranger ...

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail (my current address is in the FAQs), dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, tuck a question into a plastic Easter egg, whatever.

• Any ideas for Seasonal Sundays? Share away!
• Did you make something extra-good this week?
• Anyone experimenting with new recipes for Thanksgiving?
• What's the one dish you always make at Thanksgiving?
• How many exclamation points in your mind, anticipating Thanksgiving? Me? !!!!!!!
• Anything else? Chime in, chat away.

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail, you'll find my current address in the FAQs. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. When you make my recipes, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below or better still, on the specific recipe's page.

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2023