Love Boat Salad for your Valentine

Love is in air and hearts arae filling the grocery stores. So we're taking a break from celebrating our own National Potluck Month here at Potluck Paradise headquarters. Not that we don't love potlucks, but we're pushing romance this week leading up to Valentine's Day. Look at the post below for our homemade and mostly healthful Valentine's chocolates. In this post we have a dish that could be the centerpiece of a potluck, but is lovely on a shared plate for two.

One quick comment before the recipe. We've made a few changes to typical seafood salads to cut the fat and reduce the sodium. That's why we've used poultry seasoning to add a bit of complexity to the dressing instead of a more traditional "seafood seasoning." Check out the labels. No sodium in poultry seasoning while "celery salt" is the first listed ingredient in the other product.

Shrimp and Avocado Salad
2 tablespoons non-fat cream cheese
2 tablespoons non-fat mayonnaise
1/8 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/8 teaspoon cumin, or more to taste
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1 cup small salad shrimp
1/3 cup finely diced celery
1/4 cup finely diced red bell pepper
1 tablespoon minced parsley
1 teaspoon minced dill gherkin pickle, low sodium version
1 Haas avocado

Combine the cream cheese, mayonnaise and seasonings in a small mixing bowl. Reserve a couple of shrimp for garnish and chop the rest into three or four pieces. Add the remaining ingredients and carefully mix until shrimp and vegetables are coated with the dressing mixture. Cut the avocado in half. Remove pit. With a small spoon, scoop out about half of the avocado flesh, chop and mix with shrimp. Make it a little easier to eat by scoring the remaining avocado in a chris-cross pattern Mound shrimp mixture into avocado shell, garnish, and serve with beet and sweet potato chips. Refrigerate any leftover filling and eat within two days.