Green is Gorgeous

Here is one of the yummy healthy salad recipes I promised. I hope this helps get the “more veggies” thing going for you.

Curly kale is best when in season. Right now you can still find the nice soft curly stuff. When the leaves feel hard and tough (see two images below), try “lacinto” or “dinosaur” kale which has long straighter bumpy leaves.  If you are in the season where the leaves are tougher, try putting coarsely chopped leaves into a food processor and blend in short bursts until you have small shreds.  This size of chopping allows you to work the dressing in more easily to break down the toughness.

I go into detail below for your ease of understanding, but don’t be fooled - it only takes about 7 minutes to make this yummy little salad.
The increase in nutrition over a regular lettuce salad is huge. (See nutritional info at the bottom of this post)

Use one to two bunches of kale to make a large salad - these sturdy salads hold up easily for a day or two in the fridge.

[For a quick single serving of your hearty green kale salad:
Use one very big or 2 or 3 small curly kale leaves
OR
approximately 3 large to 6 small lacinto kale leaves. Adjust the dressing proportions.]

Chop into small bite size pieces and put in your large salad bowl that you will be eating out of.

Make your simple dressing:
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil (enough to make salad nice and moist
Juice of 1  lime, lemon, or meyer lemon (taste as you go to get the tartness you like)
Sprinkle cayenne pepper lightly over the top surface of the salad
Salt to taste - start with an even light sprinkling over the top surface of the salad: After mixing as instructed below, taste and adjust salt content as desired. (use good quality natural salts rather than commercial processed salts)

Here is the secret to making your salad yummy, tender and easier to chew:
Use very strong squeezing/squishing to break down the kale and work the dressing into the leaves.

Now:
Add other ingredients, according to your tastes - if you prefer simple, stick with simple.
You might like to add slices of cucumber, chunky tomatoes, green onions, etc. If you want to add sprouts - add them to individual servings rather than the whole salad that you’ll be storing.
My favorite version is to add only chunky cut tomatoes, which combines with the lemon flavor nicely.

Yummm!

Kale contains excellent resources for Vitamin C, K, A, B6, Manganese, dietary fiber, copper, potassium, calcium, and a good resource for a host of other nutrients including Omega 3, B vitamins, magnesium, and vitamin E. It is also a source of Sulforaphane (if you chew it properly) which is thought to prevent cancer. I like Kale.

I have always found this salad to be a wonderful help to digestion. See  food combining for more on digestive matters.