Raw Kale Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing

Eat more kale!!!

My home garden is at an "in between" stage for kale. I have tons and tons of kale plants but they are either worn out, kind of picked over, or baby plants hoping for enough rain and light.  I found myself buying 3 huge bunches of kale at the Farmer's Market on Wednesday.  I bought a big bunch of dino kale which I juiced and two big bunches of curly kale.  One of the bunches was this spectacular purple red colored kale.  I figure things just have to be really really really good for you when they are that kind of vibrant color.

I took a photo of the purple red kale but this photo does not do the poor thing any justice!

 

I am a fan of raw kale salads but I seldom make them.  I'm committing to making more of them and here's how I started... with a creamy tahini dressing topped kale salad.  I looked online and in a few cookbooks and decided to put my recipe together in the following way:

 

Creamy Tahini Dressing

1/2 - 3/4 cup water

1/2 cup tahini

2 tablespoons flax seed oil

2 cloves garlic

Juice of 1 1/2 lemons

salt

pepper

 

I blended all of these together in my vitamix and got a frothy yummy garlicky creamy dressing.

 

For the kale salad I used:

 

2 heads of curly kale washed and torn into bite sized pieces

4 - 6 carrots shredded

1 red bell pepper sliced thinly

1 cup of pomegranate seeds

a couple handfuls of hemp seed

 

 

The difference between these two bowls is that one has only shredded carrot and one has the sliced bell pepper.

Steps for putting this all together:

1.  Wash and rip the kale and spin it dry
2.  Make the dressing
3.  Add the dressing to the kale.  Spend a couple minutes massaging the dressing into the kale. See the photo below.  That's right... just dig your clean hands into that bowl and massage away!  I have to say that I didn't massage long enough and our kale was a little hearty tasting - lots of chewing.  Still delicious but chewy. Massage that kale!

4.  Add the shredded carrots, bell peppers, hemp seeds, pomegranate seeds and mix.  Cover and let sit for a bit before eating.

What I would do differently next time?

-----I might roast the garlic before I put it in the dressing because raw garlic can be intense

-----I might use the flax seed oil on the kale before adding the dressing.  Massage the flax oil and a bit of salt into the kale first so it breaks down better. I'd massage the heck out of the kale, too.  I really didn't do the massage job justice and the kale was awfully chewy.

-----Add more lemon to the dressing.

-----Add avocado chunks to the salad when serving.

-----Add the hemp seed into the dressing.


Remember.... EAT MORE KALE!!  It's so good for you.