Healthy Eating & Dining don't have to be Mutually Exculsive

Last Saturday we had some friends over for dinner, I had been hemming and hawing about having a dinner party as I so often seem to but I have been reading Edie's posts about hospitality over at Life in Grace and was moved to do something. I know I can never hope to emulate her preparedness for guests or any other part of her unique approach to hospitality and I'm really not sure why I am so fascinated by her blog other than she is the antithesis of me - a home-schooling-former-doctor-religious Southern Belle. Anyways, I was inspired to invite a few people over for dinner. Originally it was to be a bigger crowd with my BFF, our friends AM (who is doing remarkably well almost six months after her stroke), her four kids & hubby and another family of three but AM had something come up but we were able to have drinks together at her place on Friday night. So we were down to a much more manageable party of nine. The only issue was that one of the invitees was on a serious cleanse - no dairy, wheat or red meat which ruled out most of my dinner repertoire but I did get out my cookbooks (which doesn't happen all that often anymore) and knew one component would have to be Quinoa, after that came roasted veggies, fresh Georgian Bay White Fish and my new go-to recipe, if you can believe it 

Kale & Brussels Sprout Salad

It is, hands down, the tastiest mix of not-so tasty vegetables around. The dressing is just basic lemon juice, garlic and oil with a sprinkle of Parmesan and, my alternative to almonds, roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds. We had this at a friend's a few weeks ago and I was amazed that my Other Half loved it, being the Brussels Sprout hater that he is, not to mentions that it is all raw. The secret seems to be to make sure both the kale and BS's are finely chopped. It is full of good stuff and tastes even better the day after. As for the kids, I chopped up more veggies (not the above) and made them fish tacos which are always a hit in our house.

We ended up with two more for dinner as so often happens once I get on an entertaining roll and the evening was lovely with wine for those who weren't cleansing and chocolate cake with "SKI" in sprinkles on top as everyone present is counting the days til the snow flies.