Tag: healthy

BEHOLD. A Kale salad that is seriously incredible. Just. Perfect! ⚡️

I’m not sure if anyone else get here but I seem to hit the same point every summer – salad everyday.  I don’t even realize it until one day I reflect on all my frequent visits to the grocery store for MORE  vegetables.  I can barely keep up (but it’s not just me, my kids are good little veggie eaters too 🙂

When it comes to salads for dinner, I usually try to make them a little more hearty. Not so much heavy in the sense of starchy carbs, I’m more into the fats – healthy fats.

I do this for a few reasons…

• We need healthy fat in our diet so that our metabolic processes function efficiently.
•  It helps you to absorb other nutrients.
•  It helps stabilize blood sugar levels.
• Fat is satiating, so maybe, just maybe you won’t feel such a strong urge to go searching through your fridge and cupboards for treats a few hours after you’ve eaten.

So when I circle back to my summer time salad obsession (say the 10 times fast), one of the key ingredients is avocados. Aside from guacamole, I think the best use for an avocado might just be this salad ✅

Lets get into it – the fist part: Grilled Kale

Before this salad I had never grilled kale before, I don’t think I ever thought to do it, but it’s super easy, and KEY to the incredible flavour so you can’t take a short cut and not grill the kale!

One thing abut grilling kale is that the big pile of kale will quickly shrink down, so use more kale then you think you will need. Kale grills quite fast so I recommend staying close by, turning the leaves when they begin to char. As they do, removed each leaf once it’s grilled. (I give more details in the recipe)

Aside from the avocado and kale, there are a few other key ingredients to this salad. There are toasted chickpeas and bread crumbs which add a nice crunchy texture.

GRILLED KALE SALAD with AVOCADO DRESSING

Ingredients:

• 2-3 large heads Green Kale
• Olive oil (it lightly coat kale before grilling)
• Salt & Pepper
• 1 Corn (on the cob)
• 1 c  Cherry Tomatoes
• 1/2 Fresh Lemon (to grill)

Avocado Dressing

• 1        Ripe Avocado
• 1/3 c  Plain Greek Yogurt
• 1        Garlic Clove, minced
• 2 tsp  Dijon Mustard
• 1/4     each Salt and Pepper
• 4 tbsp Olive Oil
  • place all ingredients in a container and blend until smooth. Set in the fridge until ready to use.

Bread Crumbs

• 1 c  Bread, sliced into cubes
• 1-2 tbsp Olive Oil
• S&P for flavor, I also had some Flavor God, Lemon & Garlic spice so I sprinkled that on top as well.

These little crumbs are simple, once you slice up the bread, toss in a little olive oil and season with the spice.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and bake until the bread is golden and dried out. Mine took about 35 minutes, but this might vary from one oven to the next, so just keep an eye on them. Once they are cooled, place in a bag and crush into smaller pieces with a rolling pin (or whatever you have on hand).

Crispy Chickpeas

• 1 c Chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• S&P to taste

Once the chickpeas are rinced, place on a paper towel to dry them completely, remove the loose skins. Coat them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and then spread over a baking sheet and bake in the oven at 425 degrees. Bake 15 minutes and then shake them around, bake another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

The grill. 

• With the grill at medium heat, first put your lemon on the grill face down for about 5 minute before putting the kale on the grill.
• Spray or lightly brush all kale leaves with olive oil, then place all the leaves on the grill. Like I mentioned earlier, stay close by because the grilling doesn’t take long! Once the leaves become charred flip over and grill an additional minute, after that remove from the BBQ.

Tear all stems off the leaves and tear the charred kale leaves into small pieces. Put all kale into a bowl and then add some of the avocado dressing (use as much or as little as you would like), and toss well.

Top with the tomatoes, corn, chickpeas, and bread crumbs, then squeeze the grilled lemon over the entire salad.

And Behold – one incredible salad!

You can enjoy this as a vegetarian dish, or since you will have the BBQ heated up you can grill some chicken, prawns….whatever you like!

Enjoy!

Carm