A Week of Salad -Tuesday

Hello everyone! We had another super fun, exciting, energetic, night at VBS yesterday. We apologize if your kids came home soaking wet! Why kids want to get soaking wet I will never understand????? That is the most miserable feeling to me and having to endure the rest of the night like that would make me crazy. But if you are between the ages of 5 and 11 there seems to be this incredible pull just dragging you through the sprinkler and telling you to stay right in it instead of running quickly out like you are supposed to!! They all came out smiling too!

So on to my salad for lunch Tuesday. I really decided to change it up yesterday and eat a kale salad instead of a regular lettuce salad. Kale gets a bad rap sometimes. It can be a bit of an acquired taste, but if you will follow a few preparation steps it will be a million times more enjoyable I promise!

This recipe came from a blog I follow Oh She Glows. It is called Weekend Glow Kale Salad and I absolutely loved it!!

It was filled with this huge portion of goodness! Chopped cucumber, sliced grape tomatoes, diced carrot, chopped red, yellow, and orange mini pepper, raisins, sunflower seeds, red onion, walnuts, and avocado that I did slice up. That is a lot but I loved every last thing in there and wouldn't make the salad without any of them!

It makes such a beautiful salad too. I actually went back for seconds, and thirds, and my husband commented that I must have been famished. I said, "Nope! I just love the salad that much." I even took the leftovers with me to dinner at the church last night.

As I said before there are some things you must do to make your kale taste delicious and not so bitter. First and foremost you must remove these stems. This is where most of the bitterness lies. I just pull the leaves right off. 

The second thing you MUST do is massage or squeeze the kale. Yes she is a little high maintenance. It is quick though so just indulge her.

Just stick your hands in and start squeezing the kale like this. It only takes a couple minutes and you will start to feel the kale get softer. It will even deepen in color.

Do you see the difference in how full the bowl looked above and after you have broken down some of the fibers it looks a little more wilted. It is supposed to look like this. That way it doesn't scratch your throat going down. You can also put a little olive oil or salt in the bowl before massaging it to make it even more silky.

The third thing you can do is pour your dressing over and let it sit for about 15 minutes so it can really soak in. Kale is a hearty green and even after its had a massage it can still handle a little soak which you would really never do with any other green. I used Angela's recipe for Tahini and Lemon Dressing and guess what folks, I didn't change one single thing and I even measured! I poured all of it over the kale and all my prepared ingredients and gave it a good mixing. Don't be afraid to use your hands again and really get that dressing mixed in. It is a bit messy but the results are amazing!

There are other varieties of kale that you might find more enjoyable such as dinosaur kale, baby kale, lacinato, and Tuscan, if you are lucky enough to live where you can buy them. Around here we get curly kale or organic curly kale! Kale is on the Dirty Dozen list so you might want to consider buying it organic.

Lightened Up Tahini- Lemon Dressing

From Angela at Oh She Glows

Yield: Just under 1 cup of dressing
Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup Tahini
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast or a bit more, to taste
• 2-4 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
• 1 tsp kosher salt + freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
• 3 tbsp water, or as needed

Directions:
1. In a food processor, add all ingredients and process until smooth. Makes just under one cup.

Now for a couple VBS pictures from last night. I have troubles narrowing the picture selection down you know!

Getting soaked not just wet of course!

Fun experiments in the Imagination Station Room!

Lazarus coming forth from the tomb! I love the smile on his face.

A little ping pong ball dropping from the upstairs balcony of the youth center for our new class of middle schoolers coming up.

They had to retrieve all the balls as quickly as they could. They were having a blast!

Can't wait to see what tonight will hold!