Sept. 4: Kale makes me happy, but you already knew that!

Another kale salad? Why the heck not! My love of kale has been well-documented this summer, and adding yet another salad to the mix just seemed to make sense. Though, truthfully, this post ends up being more about the dressing than the salad... 

Originally the plan was for the kale caesar salad (see the video below). Then I realized I'm not really a fan of anchovies, and wasn't in the mood to buy them just for this salad. Capers aren't something I love love, either. So I took the idea, and the general concept from the recipe that PBS posted (one of their most clicked on recipes in the month of August!) and adapted to suit my tastes.



Pretty funny pup, eating kale, eh? I love this video. It's a very happy salad-making moment. (I put the happy in there just for you, Jen.)

I also had a really great kale salad at a juice/salad place in Seattle earlier this summer, and have been meaning to recreate that combination of flavors all summer. So this salad really turned into an amalgam of 1) what is around and fresh, 2) my taste memories and 3) any excuse to throw a handful of parmesan cheese into a bowl and call it healthful!

Kale salad with corn, avocado and tomato
Serves 2, as a side dish, 1 if you're me
3 large handfuls of prepped kale--destemmed, roughly chopped or ripped
1 large tomato, diced
1/2 avocado, cubed
1 ear corn, roasted and cut off the cob
1 cup croutons, homemade preferable but storebought is allowed ;)
1/3 cup shredded parmesan
Salt and pepper to taste

Dressing
2 shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 large bunch parsley, washed
1 egg yolk
2 tsp. dijon mustard
2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
2/3 cup olive oil

Put all the dressing ingredients into a blender and whiz on high until blended well.

Put the kale in a large mixing bowl and drizzle the dressing generously over the leaves. Massage the kale with your hands until the leaves wilt and the dressing is very well integrated.

Add the rest of the salad ingredients except the parmesan, and toss to combine. Add a bit more dressing to the salad to ensure that the additional ingredients get coated well with dressing. Add the parmesan last and toss one more time, then season to taste with salt and pepper.

This recipe makes more dressing than needed for one salad. Put the rest of the dressing in a jar and refrigerate. Its pretty greenness will call to you from the fridge!

This salad and dressing are both keepers. I love the bite of the shallots and garlic, as well as the green goddess appearance from the parsley. I will be tossing this dressing on many a salad in the near future!

Enjoy. These waning days of summer, all I want is the good, fresh produce that I know is going to vanish before we know it. Poof.

Jen and I (and now my mom and Lisa too!) are blog challenging throughout September. You can catch her blog over at Stuff Jen Says. If you want to write along with us, give me a shout and I'll send you the blog prompts.

Oscar night pasta: Angel hair with blue cheese, grapes and croutons!

This is a pasta for the brave blue cheese lover. It all began with a Mark Bittman moment (his NYT blog Bitten is a favorite of mine) over the weekend, and in getting caught up on reading his recipes and blog posts, I got further caught up in the comments... one thing led to another, I got hungry Sunday night just as the Oscars started and my own experiment took off.

Let me say, too, that the photos don't do it justice. I must have been distracted by Hugh Jackman or something...

I had never considered croutons on pasta before. Just didn't really think about it. I'm all about bread salads and such, even croutons on soup of course, but when the writer submitting the recipe mentioned croutons for the crunch factor, I had to give it a whirl. I didn't have the arugula that the original recipe called for, so in looking down in the comments I saw grapes and thought, "Oh yes!" I have always liked grapes and blue cheese together. There's a wonderful local restaurant that has a grape salad on their menu right now that is to die for, so I thought if this is even close to that...

So we begin...

To make your own croutons, cut a loaf of crusty bread into cubes. Mine got a little large, for which I was thankful later--less soggy, a little more crunchy. Toss the bread cubes with oil. I did a mixture of 2 T. olive oil, 2 T. basil grapeseed oil and 2 T. rosemary grapeseed oil. Spread on two baking sheets and bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, until browned. I switched racks halfway through to get the browning even.

Cook the pasta. I went with angel hair, just loving the thinness. Before draining, reserve a half cup of the cooking liquid. Drain and set aside 2 cups of cooked pasta.

While the pasta is cooking, rinse and cut about 1.5 cups of red grapes (black grapes would also be good and I love their texture). Heat a frying pan over medium high heat and saute the grapes in a little rosemary grapeseed oil. When they are heated through and somewhat seared (happy carmelization with the sugars!), toss them in with the pasta and a half cup of blue cheese crumbles. Drizzle the pasta cooking liquid over and add a half cup of chopped basil. Toss thoroughly, add a handful of croutons and you're good to go. (Too much liquid and you'll lose the blue cheese texture, so go with a light hand on that. You won't need the full half cup.)

I scarfed happily while watching celebrities do their love-fest thing, and life was good!