Eating For Your Future/Massaged Kale Salad with Quinoa and Pomegranate

For those of you who have become accustomed to seeing a daily post from me, you may be thinking that you'll need to put out a missing persons alert ;) All is well, I've just been super busy in my garden, in fact, all of my spare time has been spent in the garden. Later this summer, we are hosting 2 rather large parties and my garden really needs some attention. By the end of this upcoming week, I should be in pretty good shape, fingers crossed. Between the garden, trying to get ready for the marathon in October, as well as other activities, something had to give, and sadly, it has been the blog. So hopefully one more week and life will begin to get back to normal, at least my normal :) 

On a fun note...

I went to the drug store a few days ago and basically bought out the Epsom salts. My husband picked up the bag of salts that I had in the car and without hesitation exclaimed, "how many pounds of Epsom salt did you buy?!!! My muscles are screaming and I need all the help I can get!

So now for a really good salad. Hey, who doesn't like a massage?!! Well, I guess there are a few people in this world, I'm not one of them. As it turns out, even kale likes a little massage ;)

With most green type salads, they really need to be made and eaten the same day. Not so with this salad. The kale really holds up, so the salad can be made the day before, and leftovers can be eaten even a few days later.

Massaged Kale Salad with Quinoa and Pomegranate 

Ingredients:

1 large bunch of kale

1 large clove of garlic

1 teaspoon of salt

juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 purple onion sliced into strips

5 radishes sliced

1 cup cooked quinoa(I like to use red quinoa as it stands out against the green kale)

seeds of 1 pomegranate

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

extra salt and black pepper to taste

The key to this salad is the dressing that is massaged into the kale.

Begin by chopping the garlic clove. 

Then mash the garlic to form a bit of a paste, but not a complete paste, you want there to still be bits of the garlic.  

Combine the garlic with the lemon, salt, and olive oil. Set aside.

Remove the stems from the kale and then roughly chop. Place kale in a large mixing bowl.

Pour the dressing over the kale and then start massaging. Be sure your hands are clean!!!

Massage until the kale begins to wilt. This will only take a few minutes. The kale will soften slightly, but will retain its crunch.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

The result is a hearty, yet light salad that is full of protein. And it's pretty too!!! The lemon juice gives the salad just a bit of a tang and the pomegranate offsets the tang with a touch of sweet.

If you give it a try, I hope you enjoy it!
Rhonda

Eating For Your Future/Tomato and Roasted Lemon Salad

Good Morning Everyone! 
I know I'm so late and completely out of sync, but rather than wait until next week, I really wanted to go ahead and share this salad recipe with you. It's fabulous!
I had a group of friends over yesterday for a soup party. I made 3 soups, 
Chicken and Spinach Soup with Fresh Pesto for the meat eaters,

Tortellini In a Pesto Broth for the vegetarians,

And Red Lentil with Coconut Milk for my vegan friends.

What amazed me was that the meat eaters all went for the Lentil soup!!! Hey, you never know :) 

But here's what I really want to share with you. This salad is so amazing, Tomato and Roasted Lemon Salad. The tag line said, "this may just be your new favorite salad"...IT IS!

The key to this salad is the roasted lemon. It sounds strange, but it is so good. Two lemons are sliced in very thin slices(rind in tack), parboiled in boiling water for 2 minutes. Drained and then mixed with a little olive oil, salt, sugar, and finely chopped sage. The mixture is then put in the oven for 20 minutes. Bring the lemon out, allow to cool and mix it in with the other ingredients. Even my husband who typically doesn't care for too much lemon loved the salad. It also contains pomegranate seeds. This salad is just a taste explosion in your mouth. And it's pretty. The above picture is mine, the picture below is from the website,

The only change that I made was that I mixed the salad with salad greens, making the original salad recipe more of an ingredient in a salad. Everyone cleaned their plate, so I think it was a hit. I'm serving this for Christmas as not only does it taste great, it's just so pretty. The recipe says that it serves 4, but mixed with salad greens, it will easily serve 6 to 8.
You can find the recipe HERE. 
One last thing, I didn't have pomegranate molasses, so I used regular molasses. The salad was still great. 
If you decide to give the salad a try, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Rhonda