Really?
That's what we're excited about here?
Kale Salad?
It sounds kind of yucky, huh? I have to admit, I do love me some kale, but it's usually cooked until very soft and seasoned and...you know, not yucky. The idea of raw kale doesn't really appeal to me, so I have absolutely no idea what made me pick up that bag of "Organic Kale Salad" at the grocery store, but I did. I suppose it was the colours. The mixture of the rich deep green of the kale with the bright orange carrot shreds and strands of purple cabbage was just so pretty. I thought I would cook it. I mean, who eats raw kale? It's tough and bitter, right?
Wrong!
The truth is, nobody every told me what to do with raw kale before, and THIS is it.
The package included a recipe and, after reading over it a few times, I thought, "What the heck ~ I'll give it a whirl. If it sucks, it'll be all seasoned, and I can just go ahead and cook it up. How bad could it be?"
Of course, I didn't think this until after I had gotten home from the aforementioned grocery store (to which, BTW, I mistakenly referred as "Evil Foods" due to my phone's autocorrect feature while texting my husband ~ haha). So, naturally, I didn't have all of the ingredients. In fact, I didn't have MOST of the ingredients. So, I decided to sort of wing it. It looked like it came down to oil, rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and some other stuff. I didn't have plain rice vinegar, so I used seasoned rice vinegar and left out the salt and sugar, but you can play that by ear. Here's what I did:
About 1 lb kale, cleaned, trimmed and chopped
1/2 - 1 cup shredded carrots (I'm guessing ~ mine was part of a mix)
1/2 - 1 cup purple cabbage, sliced into thin ribbons
1/2 c. olive oil
1/2 c. seasoned rice vinegar*
2 TBS toasted sesame oil
black pepper to taste
maybe a little sugar and/or salt
1 can garbanzos, rinsed and drained
1/4 - 1/2 c. walnuts, chopped or roughly broken
1/4 - 1/2 c. dried cherries
chopped prepared beets and sliced avocado for garnish
In a very large bowl, combine kale, carrots and cabbage. Add olive oil, vinegar, sesame oil and pepper to taste. Toss well. Taste, adjust seasonings as necessary. You might like it a little sweeter, or more salty. If you do, add a little sugar and/or salt. Add garbanzos, walnuts and cherries and toss gently. Allow salad to sit for at least 30 minutes before serving. The dressing softens and mellows the kale, and helps all of the flavours blend over time. (In fact, I think it will be even better tomorrow.)
To serve, place a generous portion of salad on a plate. if desired, top with a few beets and arrange avocado slices to make it look extra pretty :)
* Seasoned rice vinegar is a mild vinegar that is seasoned with sugar and salt, so, if you don't have any on hand, you could use any mild-flavoured vinegar and add salt and sugar to taste. I like to keep seasoned rice vinegar around, because it sure makes a great dressing, with very little effort. I make coleslaw by adding seasoned rice vinegar to mayonaise, mixing in a little Old Bay Seasoning and tossing with shredded cabbage. Oh, look! Two recipes for the price of one!
**I think a little cooked quinoa and/or some chopped hardboiled eggs would be a nice addition to this salad, but it is great as is.
And look ~ I even remembered to take a picture this time!
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