A healthy barbeque

When I hear the word barbeque I automatically think "RED FLAG DAY" (days where you have events/drinking/over-indulgence which pretty much reverses all the hard dieting and exercising you do the rest of your week), and this weekend J and I played host - Bathurst was on (which I could not care less about) so that means VB, swearing, bogans, steak and sausages. I was determined to make sure there was some healthier options (in the interests of the 12WBT and also for me to try a few new salads out), but still keep it tasty.
The guest list was mostly boys, here for the cars, but I managed to convince a couple of girlfriends to keep me company for the 6.5 hours ish of V8's. One of them even whipped up a delish Zucchini Slice, despite J's protest that it had no place at Bathurst (I had to make she put in the bacon even though she usually leaves it out, otherwise there would have been some serious protesters).

Apart from the standard barbeque fare (chips, sausages, meat patties) I managed to sneak in some more waist line friendly options. To be honest its hard to food match with VB, and to please a bunch of boys who would rather meat and three meats than meat and three veg. But it just means that I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow...

Nibbles
Sneak some rice crackers amongst the chippies, as well as some TMX homemade hummus (1 can drained chickpeas, 2 cloves garlic, 2 tbsp tahini, 2 tbsp oil, juice of 1 lemon), and some carrot and celery sticks, and no one will be any wiser (much).

Kebabs
Put pretty much any vegetable on a kebab stick(pre soaked in water for about 30 mins to avoid burning the stick), with or without meat, and you are on to a winner. Even fruit. I am one of those people who doesn't generally mix sweet and savoury but whatever floats your boat (apricot chicken is just weird...). Onion, courgette/zucchini, pineapple, beef, tofu, capsicum, cherry tomato, eggplant, pumpkin, prawns. The ones I made this time around were beef, capsicum and zucchini.

Salads
I made the standard potato salad to make sure that nobody was too surprised with the options on offer, but here are a couple of (slightly modded) 12WBT salads that are super quick, easy and tasty...
1. Cherry tomatoes (halved, half punnet), roast baby carrots (1 bunch 20 mins at 180 with a light spray of olive oil and some salt and pepper), 1 can drained chickpeas, 2 handfuls mixed salad leaves, cucumber sliced thin, 150g danish feta
2. Cherry tomatoes (halved, half punnet), 2 cans drained baby beetroot, 150g ricotta, 2 handfuls baby spinach, 1 can drained red lentils

Abbie turned up and had a wee tantrum that I hadn't baked despite my last bog's claim that Sunday is baking day, and she couldn't see any baking, so I whipped up a MasterChef Extreme Chocolate Brownie (TMX recipe) served with some raspberry sauce (200g raspberries, 2 tbsp caster sugar, 2 tbsp lemon juice, bring to boil for a couple of minutes).

One last tip - avoid drinking VB, despite the fact its a BBQ. I can recommend a nice glass of vodka and soda with a hibiscus flower...