YOUR HEALTHY PLATE: Two Kale Salads

This past Monday we had bookclub at my house, and it was really nice. We read Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi, and ate a whole bunch of delicious things, including a fantastic sweet potato soup (from Amy Chaplin’s Whole Food Cooking Every Day), rainbow carrots and baba ganoush from the West Side market, and Lynne’s fantastic kale salad, which she throws together with tahini dressing and a homemade mix of spiced almonds, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds. One of these days I’ll have to get the recipe, but I can already see her laughing and tossing back her head as she says, oh I don’t know, I just toss it all together! So, at least for now, your guess is as good as mine.
Then there’s this other kale salad, whose source I honestly cannot remember. It is very easy, and quite delicious. The dressing is unusual in that it contains the juice of a whole tomato. And lately there is plenty of kale to go around, so here is something you can do with it:
1. Chop up 1 pound of well-washed and drained kale into small pieces with a knife or a pair of scissors. Place in a medium-large serving bowl. Mix with your hands for a minute or two until the kale leaves begin to soften and turn darker green.
2. Add one-quarter cup raisins, 1/4 cup diced carrots, and 1/4 cup diced red onion to the bowl.
3. Into a high-speed blender, add the juice of 1 lime, 1/4 cup tahini, 1 large tomato, and a few leaves of fresh mint. Blend until liquid, and then pour over the kale mixture. Prior to serving, you can sprinkle a few pumpkin seeds on top, if you’d like.

Enjoy this salad for lunch, or take it to bookclub. It is really yummy.


Curried Lentil, Tomato, and Coconut Soup

Everything Yotam Ottolenghi touches turns to gold. If you don’t already have one of his cookbooks [Ottolenghi (2008), Plenty (2010), Jerusalem (2012)] in your home, prepare yourself. YO takes flavor to the next level. Look at this list of ingredients – I’ve used them all, but never to such glorious effect. And it’s not just flavor. He takes texture to the next level, and color. Surely his kitchen has more than three dimensions. Continue reading


A New Cookbook called Love Thy Legumes!

Dear readers,

I just finished reading a new cookbook called LOVE THY LEGUMES, and it was great! It’s an educational cookbook by public health nutritionist, Sonali Suratkar. Lucky for us, Sonali is passionate about cooking and nutrition education. Continue reading