Just what I need, colour and vitamins - Orange and Apricot Salad With Hazelnuts and Maple Syrup

 So this was Christmas to paraphrase John Lennon and although I have enjoyed it all, it feels good it is  all over and I can get going again with my normal life. Well we have that New Year's stuff to do but is far less labour intense so I can take that. We had a nice quiet Christmas with my Italian family, lots of nice food and happy faces and what else can you ask for?

 But now I crave healthier food, colours and vitamins are high on my list and the choice was easy when I was pondering what recipe to post here on Lucullian,  with an overload of oranges and clementines, the choice was ever so easy - I was going to make a fruit salad with oranges. Oranges and the most wonderful dried apricots I ever tried, ecological and therefore brown and ugly to look at but oh so sweet and tasty in your mouth. But to make the orange salad even more orangey, I have added finely chopped candied orange peel and then some chopped hazelnuts and to top it off I added a little of my precious maple syrup that sweet Elizabeth gave me at the Plate To Page Workshop in October (btw, there is still a space free for you at the Plate To Page UK Workshop in May 2012, hurry up and register here). A simple and incredibly easy to make dessert but fresh and healthy because you need so very little of sweetener that you could actually skip it if you want.

ORANGE AND APRICOT SALAD WITH HAZELNUTS AND MAPLE SYRUP
2 servings

4 small or 2 huge oranges
4 dried apricots, preferably ecological
1 tbsp finely chopped candied orange peel
2 tbsp chopped hazelnuts
2 tbsp maple syrup, optional

   Peel the oranges with a small and sharp knife, then cut them into thin slices that you put in a bowl. Slice the dried apricots thinly and add them, the chopped candied orange pell and the hazelnuts to the oranges.

   Add the maple syrup and mix carefully before serving.