The January Salad

January is the month when I try to redeem myself from all the indulgent foods of the last two months.  You too?  Although I don't try too hard (I had chocolate chip cookies yesterday), I believe in a balanced diet, so today I made a kale salad.  

I've been enjoying visiting with Travis and his family the past few days (cute baby pictures to come!).  Rebecca brought one of her Christmas presents with her and said I might like to look through it, so I took the time this morning to check it out.  What a fun cookbook, and yes I've already googled that pour top for mason jars.  Not only did I find it here, but also found this one that's pretty cool. 

When I saw this recipe for Kale and Apple Salad, I knew what I was going to have for lunch, since I had kale, apples and blue cheese in the fridge.  Notice how pretty that salad looks in the book, because mine didn't turn out looking like that at all, but it was very tasty none the less.  

The first thing I did was make the salad dressing.  The book gives you the recipe for a basic vinaigrette (1 part vinegar, 4 parts oil and salt and pepper) and then expands on that formula with four more dressings.  If that was the only thing you learned from this book, it would be valuable.  Making your own salad dressing is the easiest thing in the world, tastes better than store-bought and costs little to make. The authors call the dressing for this salad, The Orchard Dressing.  I had to adapt it a bit, as I didn't have walnut or canola oil.  I used an extra light olive oil and it tasted delicious.

The Orchard Dressing

2 T. apple cider vinegar

1/2 t. honey

1/2 t. sea salt

freshly ground pepper to taste

4 T. walnut oil

4 T. canola oil

Combine in jar.  Seal and shake for 30 seconds.

I washed and dried the kale, then cut it away from the center stem.  After spinning it once more in the salad spinner, (I wanted to remove every drop of water), I chopped it pretty fine and gave it a nice massage.  That massage helps to break down some of the fiber in the leaves and yields a more tender salad.

I thinly sliced an apple.  The recipe called for three and that's why my salad looks different from the book. Mine's heavy on the kale.  

This chunk of blue cheese has been hiding out in the cheese drawer, waiting to be used in some way.  Although, I'm not opposed in the least to eating it straight out of the fridge with slices of pears, I decided to use it in this salad.  When I'm too busy to pay attention, I'm guilty sometimes of forgetting about those little pieces of cheese and letting them go to waste.  Since I took the time at the beginning of the week to clean out and take inventory of the contents of my fridge, I knew it was there.  Yay me. 

The recipe called for toasted walnuts, but I had some candied pecans left over from a Christmas salad and I'm trying to use what I have.  Darn it.  Guess I'll just have to put those candied nuts in the salad. (wink)  They are so good.  I'm going to share that recipe with you some time soon.  I promise. 

As I was putting the ingredients back in the cabinet, I spied a jar of dried cranberries.  Since I can't seem to leave well enough alone when it comes to recipes, I decided to throw a few of those in too.  That was a good call.

Thanks to Becca,  and her cookbook, I have a new January salad.  This is the time of year to be eating hardy greens anyway.  I know that.  I have to keep a blind eye to those tempting salad mixes in the plastic containers.  Every time I buy one, I get mad, because once I start digging in the box, I find that half of the greens are slimy and I end up throwing it away.  Money down the drain!  If I can be patient, hopefully, I 'll have a garden bed full of spring mix in a few months.

Starting a cookbook project is one of my goals for this year.  I plan to pull some of my many cookbooks off the shelves and cook from them, blogging about the recipe as I go along.  Even though this isn't one of my cookbooks, it's a good place to start.  Infuse  has some delightful recipes for salad dressings, infused oils, (for drizzling over caprese salads, sriracha popcorn, grilled pizzas and steak), flavored waters and spirits.  Since I don't drink alcohol, I didn't spend a lot of time in that section.  If your looking for some ideas to easily add some pizzaz to your meals, infused oils is a way to go.  Fun book.

Update to original post: This salad is even better the second day!

*  Take the Time goals  #33 - Eliminate food waste.     #50- Start a cookbook project.