If you want to add color to your holiday menu, try this recipe for Southwestern Christmas Salad, which we found in the December 1992 issue of Bon Appetit. It's a colorful mixture of sliced pink grapefruit and navel oranges arranged on red leaf lettuce, covered with avocado, sprinkled with pine nuts. Drizzled over the top is a tangy mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, rosemary and minced jalapeno. Variations of this salad are popular Christmas Eve fare in both old and New Mexico. Each serving contains 29 grams of fat.

For this recipe, we:

Reduced the amount of oil in the dressing from 7 tablespoons to 3.

To compensate for some of the lost liquid volume, we added 2 tablespoons water.

Reduced the number of avocados from 3 to 1. To mimic the appearance of the original, we sliced the avocado into thin wedges. This change eliminated 61 grams of fat, but provided avocado flavor in each serving.

Reduced the pine nuts from 4 tablespoons to 3.

We think our salad was every bit as colorful and tasty as the original. The 3 tablespoons of oil made for a lighter dressing, but it carried the flavor of the original, reduced to 12 grams of fat per serving.

Tip of the week: This recipe calls for placing every salad ingredient on a platter. It looked lovely, but was difficult to serve. If possible, we suggest arranging it on individual salad plates. It will look festive on your table, and make serving easier.

Southwestern Christmas Salad

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 jalapeno, seeded and minced

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

4 navel oranges

2 pink or red grapefruit

1 head Boston or red leaf lettuce

1 California avocado

3 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

On day ahead: In small bowl, whisk together juice, water and mustard. Gradually whisk in oil. Stir in chili and rosemary, salt and pepper. Cover; let stand at room temperature.

Up to 4 hours ahead: Peel oranges and grapefruit. Slice oranges into rounds and grapefruit into half rounds. Line large platter (or individual plates) with lettuce leaves. Arrange orange slices in center, overlapping. Arrange grapefruit around oranges, overlapping. Cover and chill until ready to serve. Just before serving, peel, pit and thinly slice avocado. Arrange slices around grapefruit. Top with pine nuts and onion slices. Drizzle over salad. Makes 6 servings.

Karen Weber, Pat Streicher and Ellen Illig are registered dietitians at Jewish Hospital's Cholesterol Center. Their Recipe Rehab Cookbook, with 250 recipes published in the Enquirer over the last eight years, is available by mail. Send check or money for $40 to RR Cookbook, P.O. Box 58100, Cincinnati 45258.

Before and after

Values based on 1 slice (1/6 of recipe)

Southwestern Christmas Salad		Adapted
Calories	340	172
Fat	29 g	12 g
Carbohydrate	21 g	16 g
Sodium	30 mg	24 mg
Cholesterol	0 mg	0 mg
Fiber	7 g	4 g
Calories from fat	73%	59%

Nutritionists recommend those on daily 2,000-calorie diet limit their fat consumption to 65 g or less, cholesterol to 300 mg or less and sodium to 2,400 mg or less per day.