Fanatic Flavors

Raw Kale Salad

Over the past few weeks, I have been consistently visiting the Wychwood Farmer’s Market, which I have found to be one of the few Farmer’s Markets around Toronto that is reasonably priced with a fantastic spread of fresh fruit, veggies, breads, snacks, even donuts!  I will admit, I get a little overstimulated while I am there, and end up buying way more than I should.  But, nothing ever goes to waste.  It’s just too good.  Many of the vendors have been carrying some fantasticly fresh kale, all different kinds!  I usually just add kale to my smoothies, but wanted to try something new with it.

I recently came across a raw kale recipe - and decided to give it a shot.

I bought some dinosaur kale from Wychwood, and adapted the above recipe to be one of my favorite salads of all time.  Salty, and crunchy are two of my favorite components in a hearty salad. I hope you like it too! 

Instead of parmesan, you could probably get away with using nutritional yeast if you want to veganize the recipe.

I recommend using fresh farmer’s market kale for this recipe, as I find it to be much more tender than the stuff in a grocery store.

Ingredients

1.       Half bunch of kale, washed, dried and chopped into salad size pieces

2.       1 -2 tbsp really good olive oil (infused olive oils get extra points in this recipe)

3.       3 tbsp of cooking olive oil

4.       3 slices old bread

5.       ½ tsp salt

6.       1 tsp dried basil and oregano

7.       ½ tsp dried chili flakes

8.       A few thin slices or real parmesan (optional)

9.       Freshly ground pepper

Directions:

1.       Place the kale in a bowl and start massaging the really good olive oil into the kale until every piece has been covered. Let this sit for at least 10 minutes.

2.       In a food processor, pulse the bread until it is roughly chopped

3.       In a pan, heat the cooking olive oil and add the bread crumbs – add the salt, basil/oregano, and chili flakes. Mix it all together

4.       Turn the heat to low and continue to stir the mixture – the bread crumbs will slowly begin to crisp up – don’t let them burn!

5.       After 5 minutes, turn off the heat, give it a final stir, and let the bread crumbs cool.

6.       Crumble the slices of parmesan and add it to the kale.

7.       Add some of the breadcrumbs and store the rest for next time.

8.       Add fresh ground pepper and enjoy! 

My apologies for the terrible photo - I have to stop taking Blackberry photos and go to the real camera