Need to ‘bring a plate’? Here are 5 healthy and creative Christmas food ideas to cater for all the family!

During the festive season, it’s all about balance. We should all be able to splurge at Christmas time but how do we enjoy the Christmas pudding without turning into one?

The trick is to balance your plate. It’s okay to eat a few extra treats but you need to balance your plate with lots of healthy stuff too. So when you are asked to bring a plate or you are planning a function, make sure to have lots of fun, delicious and healthy dishes. This will also encourage the kids to eat their Christmas Colours (red and green fruits and veggies). Fill up on the healthy stuff and then enjoy a little treat afterwards. Aim for your plate to be half veggies. Here are a few ideas on how to create some Christmas fun with fruits and veggies.

1. Festive Salads

• Use Christmas colours (green and red veggies) to create a salad. Create a nice effect by layering red and green veggies in a glass bowl
• Add some craisons (dried cranberries) and walnuts to your salad

2. Christmas veggie platter

• Bring a plate of veggies but arrange them as a Christmas tree.
• Celery and cucumber sticks make great branches. Tomatoes can be baubles and red capsicum can be tinsel or even cut into star shapes. Or create the tree by alternating row of steamed broccoli with cherry tomatoes. Use a dip, pretzels or mushrooms as the trunk.

3. Create a 3D Christmas tree

• Buy a polystyrene cone shape. Cover it in foil or cling wrap. Skewer, using tooth picks, a range of chopped veggies, cherry tomatoes, small mushrooms. Insert tooth picked veggies into cone to create a tree.

4. Dips (to accompany veggie platters)

Layered Christmas dip.

• Use a small glass bowl to create a dip with green, red and white layers.
• Create a green layer by mixing together 2 avocados, ¼ cup chopped fresh coriander, juice of one lime and 1 teaspoon sweet chilli sauce.
• Top green layer with 200g lite sour cream or reduced fat cottage cheese.
• For the red layer, finely cut tomatoes, red capsicum and mix with a dash of sweet chilli sauce.

Xmas tree dip.

• Take a block of light Philadelphia cream cheese.
• Cut it diagonally and arrange on a plate so it looks like a Christmas tree.
• Top with a generous amount of sweet chilli sauce.
• Top with diced coriander.
• Use red capsicum to make a star for your tree.

5. Fruity Christmas ideas

• Christmas kebabs using red and green fruits
• Create a 3D Christmas tree of fruits. Strawberries work well.
• Serve fruit salad in a watermelon bowl. Hollow out half a watermelon. You can use the watermelon in your fruit salad.
• Cut pieces of watermelon into Christmas trees using a cookie cutter.

For pictures, tips and ideas for a healthier Christmas you can go to: http://www.pinterest.com/MakingFoodFun/making-food-fun-healthy-christmas/