Add something new to holiday table with two super salads.

Byline: HOME COOKING By Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

Terry Biggs of Eugene provides recipes today for two salads suitable for a holiday meal. Biggs and her husband, attorney Ed Thompson, make their home off Fox Hollow Road on an 80-acre tree farm. He tends the farm, although she is the one with the degree in forestry from Oregon State University.

Specialty: "I like doing brunch," she said. "I like doing parties, not large parties. It's fun. It gives me a goal and I like to try new things. I'm always one to try something new that I've never tried before, and all my friends know, `Well, when we go to Terry's house, we'll have something totally different that she's never made before.' '

Biggs said her favorite party involves inviting eight people over for brunch on Saturday or Sunday. "It's hard to do dinners because we live so far out in the country that people don't like to drive out there in the dark," she said.

How she began cooking: "Probably like most people, you know, helping mom in the kitchen and my dad, whoever's turn it was to cook," she said.

"We had a great system of taking turns in our house. Both my parents worked. My mom was a teacher and my dad was often out of town, so we took turns. When we got old enough, Tuesday was my day and Wednesday was my brother's day and Thursday was my dad's day when he was in town. And we loved his day because he always took us out."

Her biggest cooking success: "I turned 50 this year, and this summer I threw myself a birthday party and I invited a lot of people," she said. "Amazingly enough, 50 people said they would come and I think there were more than that.

"So I cooked for like 60 and I did it all myself. Three hours before, a whole bunch of my girlfriends came over and helped me, thank goodness. I was a wreck. But I actually had a really good time."

The menu had a luau theme. She prepared skewers of grilled chicken and shrimp that she served with a coconut curry cream sauce and grilled pork tenderloin with homemade peach chutney.

Her biggest cooking failure: "I had help with that," she said. "My husband helped - actually his idea. We decided to barbecue a turkey for Thanksgiving one year. The bag of charcoal had been left out in the rain. So, that's OK. Brought it in. Put it in the furnace room. It dried out. It seemed fine.

"Well, don't use charcoal after it's been wet for a month. It didn't work. The stuff just wouldn't burn and we didn't have any more charcoal and nobody wanted to go to town, and five hours later the turkey was still raw. So no turkey for Thanksgiving.

"We had ham," she said, explaining that it was just a ham she had in the refrigerator to slice for sandwiches.

Her favorite cookbooks: "Portland's Palate" by the Junior League of Portland, "Northwest Food and Wine" by Dan and Kathleen Taggart and "Savor the Flavor of Oregon" by the Junior League of Eugene provide her with local recipes, she said. Cooking Light magazine is another of her favorite sources of recipe ideas.

Why this recipe was chosen: Both of these salads are easy to make and suitable for the holidays, she said. She served the Sweet Potato Salad at her 50th birthday luau and people asked her for the recipe. She dreamed up the Holiday Green Salad last year for a lunch she served the SongSpinners, the choral group she's been singing with for about 10 years.

Sweet Potato Salad

8 yams or sweet potatoes (about 3 pounds)

1 cup cider vinegar 

1/2 cup olive oil 

1 tablespoon honey

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 teaspoon fresh chopped oregano 

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1 medium sweet onion, sliced thinly

1 red or green bell pepper, sliced thinly

In a large saucepan, boil yams or sweet potatoes until just tender, about 20 minutes. Peel. Cut in half lengthwise and then again into 1/4- to 1/2 -inch slices.

Prepare salad dressing in a small bowl using the next eight ingredients (vinegar, olive oil, honey, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and thyme).

Add dressing, sliced onion and sliced bell pepper to the yams or sweet potatoes and toss gently. Cover and refrigerate, or serve warm.

Holiday Green Salad

2 bunches leaf lettuce

Raspberry vinaigrette (ingredients follow)

1 cup finely chopped fresh cranberries

2 diced fresh pears

1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds or chopped pecans

For the raspberry vinaigrette:

2 cups frozen raspberries, thawed

1/4 cup raspberry vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil

Tear leaf lettuce into bite-sized pieces.

Prepare vinaigrette using the thawed frozen raspberries, raspberry vinegar, sugar, dry mustard, white pepper and olive oil. Add the cranberries and pears.

Toss the mixture with the lettuce. Sprinkle with the toasted nuts.

To nominate a cook for this feature, send mail to Home Cooking, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440; fax [phone]; contact Jim Boyd at 338-2363, or [phone]; or send e-mail to [e-mail]. Include the nominee's name and phone number, your name and phone number, and why you think he or she is an interesting cook.