It seems that the older I get, the more cynical I become. Prime example, I wasn’t expecting much from this recipe. I thought the flavors wouldn’t mesh and I would end up wasting a whole salad. Boy, was I wrong.
I picked this recipe up from COOKIE+kate. She has a plethora of salad recipes and after this, I’m committing to trying them all.
I paired this delicious salad with a separate stuffed cabbage recipe to add some variety to my diet. You know, warm and savory vs. cold and tangy. I also had a lot of ingredient substitutions at home already, so I made some minor changes to Kate’s recipe. I would suspect that this wouldn’t make a noticable difference, but who knows?
The goal here was to make something good and quick so because I don't have time to massage kale, I used spring mix. The original recipe also calls for lime juice and pepitas (pumpkin seeds), but I used sunflower seeds and lemon juice. And I just knew the avocado wasn’t going to last on it’s own, so I used it in the dressing. Finally, instead of corn tortillas, I used pita chips.
The only downside was I didn’t chop the jalapeno enough so when it was time to blend the dressing ingredients together, everything blended-except the jalapeno..sigh.. So I had to take them out and mince them by hand then pray everything would fix itself when I pressed the button. Thankfully, it worked and tasted well. In the end, I kept the dressing separate to preserve the salad.
Verdict: As you can probably guess, I give this ‘Feta Fiesta Kale Salad’ two thumbs up. The honey and jalapeno balanced the dressing perfectly and the avocado made it creamy enough that I didn’t even miss my beloved ranch. Add the salad and you have something short of Heaven. Tossgreen, watch out.
Till Next Time,
KB + Co.
