Instead of serving a typical green salad for your Christmas meal, surprise your dinner guests with a scintillating Caesar salad. You can even add some flair to your get-together by preparing your Caesar salad classic-style — tossing it tableside. Even though a Caesar is a very simple salad to make, it effortlessly adds panache to your holiday dinner parties – especially when you create it right in front of your guests.

Makes about 8 servings

Make pork roast the night before and plan for this “planned over” supper, or purchase deli pork roast. Pair with fresh breadsticks hot from the oven.

Use any combination of nuts and seeds. This salad would also be good with sliced bell pepper or shiitake mushrooms. Serve as an accompaniment to pepper steak or pork chops glazed with hoisin sauce. Look for the wheat noodles labeled as plain for this salad.