Whew! It has been an incredible couple of weeks filled with good and lousy news, highs and lows, friends and family all over the place, joy, tears and beauty. Honestly, I haven't really caught up yet. Y'all are amazing for hanging on and being here and taking care of yourselves. Please keep doing that. Hope is kinda everything right now and really feels like something to work at and do our best to share.
So, that said, I'm keeping this simple today and sharing one of my favorite, healthy, easy-to-personalize salads with you. I learned about this while taking classes with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Terry Walters did a presentation on clean eating and shared a very basic version of her favorite kale salad recipe. I never wrote it down, but just jumped in to make it my own. It's a bit different each time, but it's always amazing. As there isn't a written version for me, you may want to check out Terry's book, Clean Start, or Goggle "raw kale salad with avocado". Find your favorite place to start and give it a try. You can't mess this up. It's great for you and scrumptious eating year 'round.
My main ingredients for this most basic version are one bunch of organic kale (any type), juice of 1/2 organic lemon, approximately 1 teaspoon of garlic infused olive oil, a pinch of sea salt, 1/2 ripe, chunked avocado, about a tablespoon of roasted pumpkin seeds and, probably, two tablespoons of Parmesan cheese.
Make sure your hands are clean (i'm guessing you typically do this, but just checking!) as you are going to dive in to massage the kale and actually mix up your salad by hand! Remove the stalk and tear kale into bite sized pieces. Place in a large-ish bowl. Add your lemon juice and salt. Get your hands in there and mix, squeeze, massage that kale! Breaking it down like this makes it less bitter and easier to digest. Now add your olive oil and avocado. Massage/mix a bit more. Clean up your hands at this point, if you'd like, and add the pumpkin seeds and cheese. I use a couple forks to mix it from here and then sit down and enjoy.
Not only is this ridiculously delicious, it's also very good for you! Kale is high in fiber, has Vitamins A, C and K, antioxidants, protein, iron, calcium and magnesium. You're getting your good fats with the avocado and olive oil, and a little immune boost with the pumpkin seeds, lemon juice and garlic. Adding things like ginger root, quinoa, carrots, onions, or red pepper add layers to your flavor and boost the good-for-you-ness.
I highly recommend making the basic version early in the week and having fun adding to it over the course of the next couple days. It's good in your 'fridge for at least 3-4 days as the flavors continue to blend and it's a new adventure with every addition. I also enjoy adding it to cooked brown rice or throwing it over a small plate of nachos.
I hope this gets your New Year off to a healthy and playful start. Wishing you all kinds of good things in 2021. I so appreciate you checking in. Take care of you, yeah?
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