St. Nicholas and a salad

December is a month of celebrations, huge ones, warm ones :) Probably there are many more traditions celebrating the 6th of December in different countries, but my humble international experience has shown - wherever you go it is completely different. German kids get a present after they have cleaned up their shoes in the evening (thank you to my mama for introducing this tradition as well), kids in the Netherlands get their presents from Sinterklaas and eat pepernoten. Czech people apparently have to decide between the angel and the devil (which turns out to be extremely popular among teenage girls, I saw an abundant amount of girls' groups all wearing the devil horns).

In Bulgaria, I have never linked the celebration with sweets - for me it is all about the fish... from the times when I was 7 years old and gained a victory over my mom to let the fish live at least 20 minutes more in the bathtub before dad would noisily kill it in the bathroom and eventually I would not eat dinner until today when the tradition has been symbolically celebrated in the form of a salad with tuna (for some reason fresh fish is not the most popular article on the Czech market). However, this salad is very fresh, light, healthy and includes very favourite products of mine :)

Green Tuna Salad

(for two portions)

Ingredients

1 little gem salad

5 tablespoons corn

1 can of tuna

20 Kalamata olives

handful of fresh baked croutons

baked walnut pieces

lemon juice for sprinkling

olive oil

There is barely anything I can say about the preparation of it. All ingredients are mixed, sprinkled with lemon and olive oil (I do not use salt, since the olives are well salty enough already). The home baked croutons and  walnuts give the salad the twist of "find yourself a treasure", because they are crunchy and tasty :) I prepare my croutons from any bread with seeds and a thick texture, I sprinkle with olive oil and spices, then bake or prepare them on the pan (never in great amounts, since we have to allow them to breathe). And that's it: the dinner of St Nicholas day - keeping the tradition and cherishing the vitamins :)