Kale, Apple and Almond Salad by Pascale Beale

Happy Birthday to this blog—4 years and post #200!!

Thanks for participating in this experiment with me!  I am not one who is naturally drawn to measuring or documenting so this has been quite a practice of observation and attempts to translate foods into something others might enjoy or learn from.  A great journey and learning experience it has been and I hope you’ve discovered a few good nuggets along the way.

Last month we had the fortunate opportunity to attend a class by Pascale Beale, author and founder of Pascale’s Kitchen, a Santa Barbara based cooking school of California-Mediterranean fusion cuisine.  If one needed a simple motto for this style of cooking it might be: use fresh ingredients and you can’t go wrong.  Pascale was traveling to promote her newest cookbook “Salade” so her transplanted friends from Santa Barbara invited her to our community for a dinner/class presentation.  Great fun to sit and drink wine while watching someone else cook–I could get used to this!  She intertwined stories to entertain us while we watched her assembly of a delicious spread.

I bought “Salade“ but “Les Fruits“ also looks interesting (not available yet)— I love introducing sweet fruits into the savory world.  Check out her blog The Market Table for more recipes.

Pascale showed us her method for making salads in one bowl: make the vinaigrette directly in the salad bowl, then place salad utensils in the bowl and set the other salad ingredients on top of the utensils so they are lightly separated from the vinaigrette.  Everything can now rest in the one bowl until the moment you are ready to toss them together and serve.

I had intended to make Kale and Spinach Salad with Honeyed Shallots and Plums but I could not find any plums so that will have to wait….unless I decide to substitute our local pears into the mix, but that is for another day.  The kale is from my garden—it’s holding up well in this chilly weather and has become much sweeter as those brassicas tend to do after a freeze.  I picked most of the leaves and froze them whole in bags but I’m hoping the last diehards will be content to hang out for a while so I can continue to graze on fresh greens well into December.

This salad could be a tasty addition to a Thanksgiving dinner, especially since there is often a shortage of greenery in those holiday comfort meals.

Kale, Apple and Almond Salad by Pascale Beale

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Bake Time: 7 minutes

For the Vinaigrette

Mix together in a salad bowl:

4 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Juice of 1/2 Lemon

2 Tablespoons Chives, finely chopped

1 Tablespoon Parsley, finely chopped

1 rounded Tablespoon Greek Yogurt, plain

Sea Salt and Black Pepper

For the Salad

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss together on a cookie sheet:

2 bunches Kale, rinsed and chopped

Olive Oil—enough to lightly coat when tossed

Sea Salt and Black Pepper

Roast for 7-8 minutes.  The kale will be just wilted and bits of it will be slightly crunchy.  

As soon as you take the kale out of the oven, toss gently with:

Juice of Fresh Lemon

Add to the bowl of vinaigrette:

the Cooked Kale

4 Apples, cored and thinly sliced

1/4 pound (a heaping 1/2 cup) Almonds, chopped (I used roasted/salted almonds—I really liked the salty with the sweetness of the apples)

Toss everything together. 

Let sit for a few minutes before serving. 

photo by David Cavagnaro