Salad Inspiration

I know the importance of eating your greens. I've read the China Study, Eat to Live, Thrive, and Kris Carr's blog; they all say pile the greens on. But until last night I had never had a kale salad. I have been making kale chips for awhile now. I have sauteed kale with onions & garlic (yum!), but the thought of raw kale, honestly, scared me a little. In part this is probably because most of the people eating kale salads mention massaging the kale for 15 mins with lemon juice. I can't even con the Aussie into giving ME a 15 minute massage. Surely, I deserve more massaging than some leafy green, right? Well, I finally caved and bought the high maintenance kale. I opted to only massage half his bootie and put the other half of the bunch into the oven for less labor intensive kale chips. I destemmed the kale and got to work. Rub, rub, rub. I glanced at the clock and realized only ONE little minute had passed. Back to work . . . rub, ugh, rub, ugh. I *may* have said "I hate you" a few times to the kale. After roughly 3-4 minutes I gave up and decided that I would probably enjoy the kale as is ;) Surprisingly, I actually did (and so did the Aussie). I used red kale, which has a nicer taste and texture, in my opinion. Maybe one day the kale will get a 15 min massage, so I can see if it makes that much difference (although it will be a day the Aussie is in charge of salad preparation . . . . muahahah)


If you feel inspired to create a salad with a kale base I definitely recommend adding avocado. It makes it very delish. Also, I grated my first beet :) Beet in a salad is really tasty, but it does turn your hands a reddish color.

In other salad inspiration, I have been eating a broccoli/carrot slaw from Trader Joe's. This stuff adds nutrients and some serious crunch factor. It doesn't have a strong flavor so you can throw it into any salad. I used it with a vegan caesar salad.



I'm heading to Boston in the morning for the weekend, so I'm not sure when I'll blog next. I hope you have an amazing weekend.

-B