Cobb Salad ("Christmas Tree")

mjd

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I love salads and what a fun way to make it festive!

Christmas-Tree-Holiday-Salad-Recipe.jpg


Cobb salad:

Crisp, fresh lettuce

Satisfying chicken and hits of flavorful bacon

Chopped hard-boiled eggs

A little spicy red onion and plenty of creamy avocado

Pretty cherry tomato “ornaments”

A final sprinkling of blue cheese “snow” on the branches (this is optional or can be served on the side for those who don’t care for blue cheese)

A yellow pepper turns into a perfect, tree-topping star, and red peppers make quick gifts to stash under the tree!

Chicken Cobb "Christmas Tree" Holiday Salad - Two Healthy Kitchens
 
I love things like that! I made this last year:

Funnily enough I hate things like that but I know lots of people like them. Kids like them for a start. Why do I hate them? I'd have to think about it in more depth but I know dislike food being sculpted or messed about with in general to resemble something it isn't. It just seems silly to me and puts me off wanting to eat it.

But don't let me put anyone off adding to this thread. I am no doubt in a minority. I know Burt Blank likes this sort of thing.
 
Funnily enough I hate things like that but I know lots of people like them.
Food "sculpting" in general...yes, I agree. It lends too much pretentiousness to something that can already be a little exaggerated.

Since this is Christmas-themed, though, it completely gets a pass and I embrace it fully...for Christmas. I have a pizza coming up in the next few days that'll fit this. We'll see how it goes.
 
Food "sculpting" in general...yes, I agree. It lends too much pretentiousness to something that can already be a little exaggerated.

This is the nearest I have come to it (this plus the cube shaped eggs I make with a fun gadget). I only did this because I've got a hen shaped 'cocotte dish':

52484
 
This is the nearest I have come to it (this plus the cube shaped eggs I make with a fun gadget). I only did this because I've got a hen shaped 'cocotte dish':

View attachment 52484
That's very nice!

TBH, I think it's all on a spectrum, from "Slopping food on a plate" at one end, and "Food sculptures" at the other.

Cave people probably just ate right off the carcass, until someone came along and said, "Ug! Hrmmph turp gob crit botbot!" - which translates to, "Good sir and madam, perhaps we could enjoy our wooly mammoth steaks a bit more if we placed them on these sort of flat rocks I found, and sat them on our laps."

Then some Bronze Age person decided that it all looked better if the meat were on one half of the wooden board, and the boiled ancient grains were on a quarter of it, and maybe some fermented veg on there as well, and then a too-smart-for-their-own-good Iron Ager came along and decided that it was even better to artistically arrange and blade or two of grass across the food and dollop a bit of fish paste here and there, "just to pretty it up."

Next thing you know...some pagan is arranging nuts and figs and honey and such to look like a temple for Saturnalia: "Oh, look at what Burtus Blankius has done with the grape leaves! He's a clever one, he is!"

:laugh:
 
"Oh, look at what Burtus Blankius has done with the grape leaves! He's a clever one, he is!" Grape leaves pffff I needed in those days a more substantial garland.
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