Recipe of the Week! 

Christmas Eve Salad
The Wine Experience Wine Recommendation:  Champagne or Sparkling Wine

Serves 8 – 10 

Salad Ingredients: 
6 medium beets, peeled, cooked, and diced (optional)
4 oranges, peeled and sectioned, with membranes removed
4 Red Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1 medium Jicama, peeled and cut into matchstick strips
1 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
4 tablespoons sugar
¼ cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup club soda
1 cup fresh pineapple cubes
2 bananas, sliced1 head iceberg lettuce, thinly sliced 

Pomegranate Dressing Ingredients
Makes 1-1/2 cups 
Seeds of 1 whole pomegranate, with some seeds reserved for garnish
1/2 cup sour cream
4 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup apple juice 

Directions:
Combine all salad ingredients except the lettuce in a large non-reactive bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 to 3 hours. While the salad is chilling, make the Pomegranate Dressing.  Combine the pomegranate seeds, sour cream, sugar, and apple juice in a blender and puree. Drain the salad and toss with Pomegranate Dressing.  Serve on a bed of iceberg lettuce and garnish with reserved pomegranate seeds.

From Fonda San Miguel: Thirty Years of Food and Art, by Tom Gilliland and Chef Miguel Ravago, owners of the acclaimed Austin, Texas restaurant Fonda San Miguel. When Miguel was growing up in Phoenix, his grandmother grew pomegranates and citrus fruits in her yard, and those fruits usually found their way into her cooking.  This is her version of a traditional salad eaten during the Christmas season when the pomegranates and other ingredients are available. The bright colors make a brilliant presentation on the holiday table