Avocado grapefruit salad

If S is out in the evening sometimes I watch queer eye and shell walnuts at the same time. One time the food dude made an avocado and grapefruit salad, and I guess I took a mental note - I like both, don’t think I’d had that combination before, but it sounded good. Some time later, s insisted on grapefruit purchase but then remembered he doesn’t like them much, and it sat in the fruit bowl for a while until some ripe avocados arrived too, and I remembered about the avocado and grapefruit salad…

1 pink grapefruit
1 ripe avocado
Lettuce 
Chopped almonds
Honey
White wine vinegar
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Segment the grapefruit and remove all the pith and membranes. Do it over a bowl and keep the juice. Peel and chop the avocado. Put the lettuce (anything mild is good - little gem, spinach etc) in a bowl, add the grapefruit, avocado and chopped nuts. Add the vinegar, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper to the grapefruit juice and  whisk together to make a dressing. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss.

It was a great combination, why have I never eaten this before?!

Potato, green bean, white bean and tomato salad

Little s and I went for dinner at his best pal n's house the other day. It's really lucky: they are totally best pals, and happen to live just across the road. Also, his mum has the same birthday as me! It was nice to eat at someone else's house, food made by someone else - one of the things I missed most during the whole lockdown thing. Other people do things different, and even small things can be so refreshing and inspiring. 

We ate this at n's house. s seemed to like it, and I did too. We had basically all the ingredients in the fridge or freezer, so I made our version yesterday.

Boiled cooled potatoes, roughly chopped

Cooked green beans

Cooked white beans

cherry tomatoes, halved

red onion or chives, finely chopped

dressing: capers, lemon juice, mustard, olive oil, salt, pepper

Mix potatoes, green beans, white beans, cherry tomatoes, and onion in a bowl. In a separate, small bowl mix chopped capers, lemon juice, mustard, olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour the dressing over the salad, toss and serve.

Krautsalat (German cabbage salad)

Krautsalat is one of the things S always buys and eats loads of when he visits Germany. I’d never tried to make it for him before but we had an excess of cabbage and it seemed like a good idea. He’d been into caraway recently so I though it should be the kind with caraway in it. This recipe seemed like just the thing.

We had a hyper German dinner, with this and some boil in the bag knoedel from Aldi - surprisingly good boiled, cooked, then fried in slices with onion and mushrooms. S was v enthusiastic about both, I should make krautsalat again... maybe I should even try making knoedel from scratch?!

1 kg white cabbage 

1 tbsp salt 

2 tbsp sugar 

3 onions 

1 tbsp caraway seeds 

140 ml sunflower oil 

150 ml white wine vinegar 

1 tbsp mustard (I used whole grain)

Clean the cabbage and remove the stem. Slice thinly and place in a large bowl. Add the salt and sugar and mix with hands for 5-10 min, until the cabbage goes a bit floppy. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge for approx. 24 hours.

The next day, peel and thinly slice the onions. Heat a medium saucepan over high heat and toast the caraway seeds briefly. Add oil, vinegar and onions to the pan and let cook gently until onions are soft. Add the mustard and mix to combine. Remove from the heat and let cool a bit.

Take the cabbage out of the fridge, add the onion mixture, and it is ready to eat. Keeps in the fridge well for a few days.

This is totally perfect, an excellent use of cabbage. It's quite quick and easy even though you have to remember to start it the day before you want to eat it. I did try making knoedel at some point, they were ok, need practice!

Kohlrabi sesame slaw

Our friends are having a Thanksgiving potluck tomorrow. I wasn't sure what to make, but C suggested a salad, and also said whatever we had in the fridge was fine... We had a gigantic kohlrabi in the fridge. Most of it has now become this slaw. I think I'll also take a tinned-peach cake.

2 lb kohlrabi
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes (recipe said 1 minced chilli)
1 small clove garlic, crushed and minced (recipe said 2 tbsp minced fresh garlic)
2 spring onions, finely chopped (recipe said 1/2 cup chopped spring onions)
handful chopped coriander (recipe said 1/4 cup chopped coriander)
toasted sesame seeds

Peel and shred the kohlrabi. Toss with the salt and set in a colander for 15 min. Rinse, drain and pat dry. Whisk together the tahini, oils, lime juice, chilli and garlic. Toss the dressing with the kohlrabi, spring onions and coriander. Sprinkle the toasted sesame seeds over the top before eating.

Asparagus, garlic, feta, lemon, thyme

Also belated from early Summer...

We did a pretty good job of asparagus season this year, if I do say so myself. We ate lots... and as much of it from our veg share as possible (think we ordered a special asparagus bag every week!). Everything seems to be growing well this year, and I guess asparagus was no exception. And it turned out small S loves it (although only the tips: he is a discerning little bug)... Much of it was prepped v simply - either with st george’s mushrooms or just boiled for 4 min and then dressed with melted butter and lemon juice... this is only slightly more complicated, but is now my other favourite way to eat it...

olive oil

c. 4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 large bunch asparagus, tough bits snapped off and rest snapped into nice-sized  pieces

salt+pepper

zest and juice of approx 1/4 lemon

c. 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1/2 pack of feta

Heat olive oil in a large frying pan with a lid and add the garlic. Sizzle for a few min, then add the asparagus pieces. Season with salt and pepper, cover and cook for a few minutes, then uncover and cook until excess moisture is gone and there is a little colour on the asparagus (it should be tender). Turn off the heat and let cool a bit, then squeeze over the lemon juice and add half the zest. Allow to cool a bit more, then serve warm, with the feta crumbled on top and thyme leaves and rest of the lemon zest scattered over it.

Aubergine, mango and soba noodle salad

A belated post from early Summer...

We went for dumplings on blågardsplads the other day - at a place we discovered either before or after a hospital appointment (silver linings). A place (think it’s called gao) that I love - they have two different kinds of vegetarian dumplings (mushroom pan fried and spinach steamed), both equally delicious; plus a long list of veggie sides that are all simple but perfect... sage loved them too. Anyway, while there remembered about the great fruit and veg shops also on blågards, checked them out too, and discovered a box of Pakistani mangoes! The delicate south Asian mangoes are way superior to the thick-skinned African ones you usually find in supermarkets - the one thing that could convince me to go to India in monsoon season... I had just been thinking maybe it was the season, but couldn’t think where was the right shop to find them...

I made this salad first about this time last year, when sage was tiny. I remember feeling proud i’d managed to cook something proper, especially because it was from a cookbook Seb gave me for my birthday (ie a few days after sage was born). Aside from eating them straight up, this seemed like a suitably special way to use some of our fine box of mangoes. This time, sage ate it too (and liked it! Although think he preferred the vegan sausages we ate with it (didn’t have any tofu)).

120 ml rice vinegar  (or apple cider vinegar)
40 g sugar
½ tsp salt
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½ red chilli, finely chopped
1 tsp sesame oil
1 lime, grated zest and juice
300 ml sunflower oil
2 aubergines, cut into 2 cm dice
300g soba noodles
½ red onion, thinly sliced
1 large mango, peeled and cut into 1cm dice
40g basil, chopped
40g coriander, chopped

In a saucepan, gently heat the vinegar, sugar and salt, just until the sugar dissolves, for up to a minute. Remove from the heat and add the garlic, chilli and sesame oil. Set aside to cool, then add the lime zest and juice.

Heat the sunflower oil in a large pan and shallow-fry the aubergine in three or four batches. Once golden-brown, transfer to a colander, sprinkle liberally with salt and leave to drain.

Cook the noodles in plenty of boiling, salted water, stirring occasionally, for five to eight minutes - the noodles should retain a bite - then drain and rinse under cold water. Shake off the excess water and place on kitchen towel to dry.

In a mixing bowl, toss the noodles with the dressing, aubergine, onion, mango and half the herbs. You can leave it aside for an hour or two. When ready to serve, add the rest of the herbs, mix and pile on a plate or in a bowl.

Best grated carrot salad

I've tried a few grated carrot salads in the past but never got it quite right. This attempt turned out exactly as I wanted; even better... The toasted coriander is key, and came from a Delia recipe (that I then decided not to stick to...).

1 tbsp coriander seeds
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp sesame seed oil
2 tsp white/red miso
1 tsp honey
salt+pepper
1 tiny clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp finely chopped onion
c 10 medium carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
1 tsp lemon zest
2 tsp chopped chives
1/4 cup raisins
2 tsp black onion seeds

Toast the coriander seeds and then crush them in a pestle and mortar. Put in a medium bowl with the vinegar, oils, miso, honey, salt and pepper (not much salt, miso is salty), crushed garlic and chopped onion. Whisk together with a fork. Add the grated carrots, lemon zest, chives, raisins and black onion seeds and mix to combine. Keeps well in the fridge (the raisins will plump up) for a few days.

Sunshine beet salad

We got golden beets in our veg bag 2 weeks ago. I wasn't very inspired at first - seemed like disappointing leftover winter veg. But we also got a recipe leaflet that my former teammate Ina started making with her students. One of the recipes was golden beets with lemon juice+zest = sunshine beets. I took the combination and made it into something more substantial... and it worked really well.


2-3 medium-large golden beets
salt+pepper
olive oil
1 cup pearled spelt
1-2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
juice and zest of 1/2 a large lemon
1 tsp white miso
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar reduction
1 tsp cider vinegar
salt+pepper
handful of chives, chopped

Wash the beets and then wrap them in foil with a little salt and pepper and olive oil. Put on a baking tray and roast at 200C for approx. 1 hour until soft. Let cool completely. Meanwhile cook the spelt in water until tender, drain and let cool.

When ready to assemble the salad, first make the dressing: chop the thyme and then mix with the lemon juice+zest, miso, 2 tbsp olive oil, vinegar reduction (use honey instead if you don't have it), vinegar, salt and pepper. Dice the beets into 1 cm dice and put in a serving bowl with the spelt and chives, then add the dressing and mix well. Eat straight away, or keeps well in the fridge for several days.


The beet-spelt-lemon-thyme combination works really well - and it does taste and look like sunshine... appropriately enough, given the insane sunny weather we've been having.

Melon, feta and toasted almond salad with honey-miso dressing

The last few months, I have made a lot of delicious salads, but rarely remembered to write them down here. This one I have made again and again. It's simple, but really refreshing.

1-2 little gem lettuces (or butter lettuce, or similar mild/crisp lettuce)
1/2 a small Galia melon (or canteloupe)
1/2 of a 200 g pack feta
approx. 1/4 cup almonds, chopped

For the dressing:
2 tsp white miso
1 tsp honey
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
black pepper and a little salt (not much, the miso is salty)

Wash and chop the lettuce and put it in a medium sized bowl. Remove the peel from the melon, chop it into bite-sized chunks and add to the bowl. Crumble in the feta. Toast the almonds in a frying pan over a medium-low heat until lightly browned (or in the oven, if you feel like switching it on)

In a separate, small bowl, beat together the dressing ingredients. When ready to serve, add the toasted nuts to the salad, then pour over the dressing and toss.


Notes: sometimes I like to add a little chopped mint - not always though, often it's good in it's simplest form. This dressing is in very regular rotation in our kitchen - over all kinds of salads - it's very adaptable - sometimes just a hint of miso, sometimes some mustard too, sometimes lemon juice instead of vinegar, sometimes without honey...

Walnut pesto (and walnut-cauliflower pasta salad)

Our heap of walnuts remains, as yet undwindling. Seb is mocking me for spending all my spare moments cracking nuts with my Granddads favourite nutcracker from 1981. But the proceeds are so nice. Some went into cookies for people waiting to be deported in Jutland at J's bday get together. For a totally different use, I thought of walnut pesto, I think inspired by this. I adapted that recipe only in as much as I substituted stuff we had in the house.

1 cup shelled walnuts
1 small garlic clove
1/4 cup grated parmesan
3 tsp mixed dried thyme, chilli and salt
2 tsp white wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp red pesto (subbed for 2 tbsp sundried tomatoes - used a bit less oil and cheese accordingly)

Toast the walnuts and let cool. Put in a blender with the garlic and pulse until roughly chopped. Transfer to a bowl and mix in grated cheese, herbs and salt, vinegar, oil and pesto. Mix together, taste for seasoning and vinegar, and eat on everything.

Some became an awesome pasta salad, with roasted cauliflower and tomatoes, white beans, parsley and diced mozzarella (or feta) - this is recommended. But it works with everything - a spoonful on top of some pasta e ceci, for example...

Christmas food 2015

We got a veg share from the coop we just joined, and based our Christmas Day food around that. We ate:

Maple-roasted parsnips and celeriac (similar to this)

Roasted brussels sprouts with pomegranate molasses (a simplified version of this)
Red cabbage and sesame salad (similar to this, with coriander instead of chives and no carrot or radish)
Potato, mint and edamame salad
Tahini-lemon sauce

Zimtsterne (these take ages to make but keep very well)

S was in charge of Christmas Eve since that is the special day in Germany. We ate cheese fondue (which is apparently traditional) with broccoli, cauliflower, gnocchi, bread pieces.

New potatoes, peas, radishes and skyr

D+Sh visited last weekend. For the first time in ever. It was fun. It felt very different from any time we ever spent together before. They were on holiday, and if anyone was in charge it was S+me. Perhaps I am grown up at last.

We made quite a lot of adventures: the zoo, Louisiana (both really good), Relae. But spent a fair bit of the inbetween time chilling on our balcony (it was very hot out, like over 30C), listening to jazz drifting up from the bar across the canal, and more of it from boats floating past with bands on. We ended up having some nice salad+bread type meals on the balcony too - it was salad weather, and Danish bread is sooo good. This was one of the salads. It makes very pleasing use of in-season fresh peas, new potatoes, radishes and chives. Plus skyr, which forms a creamy dressing while remaining fresh and light and not overpowering.

20 or so new potatoes (adjust according to size / taste)
500 g bag of fresh peas, shelled
1 bunch of radishes, trimmed and sliced
1 tbsp chopped chives
4 tbsp skyr mixed with 2 tsp lemon juice and 2 tsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Cook the new potatoes until just tender and set aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients. Blanch the shelled peas by pouring boiling water over them then draining pretty much straight away. Put all ingredients in a serving dish and mix together. Serve warm or cold.

Diced cucumber, tomato and feta salad with chickpeas

Cucumbers are so deliciously crunchy and crisp and delicately tasty and juicy. Perfect antidote to accidentally drinking too much coffee... again. Why not cut them into chickpea-sized pieces along with some cucumbers and a little bit of feta... add parsley and tasty bits and pieces, and crunch on it along with a bit of bread... whenever I cook chickpeas they disappear so fast!

1/2 cucumber, diced
6 ish small-medium tomatoes, diced
1 in piece of feta, diced
cupful of cooked chickpeas
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped capers
1 tbsp chopped sundried tomatoes
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt+pepper

Mix everything together, dress with olive oil, balsamic, salt+pepper. Done.


Nothing but simple food, and especially salads at the moment. S has been bringing lunch to work as well since we moved here, so it's kind of a fun challenge thinking of what will feed my appetite plus his.

Pear and gorgonzola salad with balsamic reduction

We've been working quite a lot lately, or travelling / with visitors (e.g. sauna tour), so not much time in the kitchen. Keeping up (food) exploring though - went to a cute veggie cafe (Cafe N) on Tuesday; found a nice coffee shop near our house yesterday (Sweet Treats). We're on the hunt for a place walking distance from our house, not too expensive but with tables and somewhere comfortable to sit, with good veggie options and non-veg stuff too - feel like we need to have somewhere like this in mind for when we have visitors. So far we've failed to find anywhere that fits the bill - nice-looking places have no veg stuff, cafe-type places that close early and don't have much seating have veg options but no real dinner options, our few fave place so far are further away or are a bit fancy...

Anyway, dinners have mostly been quite simple, taking advantage of all the readily-available awesome breads, and my sojourn into eating eggs and dairy again, and since it warmed up we've been making quite a lot of salads.

This was yesterday's. There was one nice ripe pear in the bowl, and I thought I'd make it go as far as I could. I guess this is a pretty typical veg option type of a salad, but tasty nonetheless, especially when you can control the levels of all those strong flavours to your liking. It comes together really fast - try and make sure it does, and gets eaten fast, as it would be a shame to let a good pear go brown...

4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 tsp sugar
2-3 handfuls rocket
1 ripe conference pear, cored and chopped into medium slices
2 in piece of gorgonzola, chopped into cubes
handful walnuts, crumbled
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
salt+pepper

Get the balsamic reduction on while you prep the rest of the salad: put balsamic and sugar in a small pan and simmer pretty high for 5-10 min until it reduced and syrupy. Take off the heat.

Meanwhile, wash the rocket and put it in a serving dish. Prep and add the pear, gorgonzola and walnuts. Drizzle balsamic reduction over the top, along with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Eat right away, with some good bread.

Celery, apple and walnut salad with lemon-tahini dressing

Very simple celery salad, surprised I never wrote it up before. It is good. Tahini and lemon juice make a creamy dressing that coats everything and brings zing.

juice of 1/3 lemon
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp tahini
salt+pepper
about 5 sticks of celery
1 apple
handful of crumbled walnuts
handful of raisins

Mix the lemon juice, olive oil, tahini and seasoning to make a creamy, thick but pourable dressing. Chop the celery and apple and put them in a serving bowl. Toss with the dressing, then add the walnuts and raisins and mix a bit more.

Warm beluga lentil salad with tomato, parsley and feta

A bag of beluga lentils was an impulse buy at my current favourite shop in Copenhagen, a Turkish grocer's in the southerly part of Norrebro. They were the same price as the other lentils, that's why: I think I'd always thought of them as the fancy expensive kind of lentils so the level pricing clinched the deal...

When I cooked them I saw why they have a reputation. They hold their shape well, and like forbidden/black/purple rice they develop a wonderfully deep dark purplish black colour (hence beluga). Good solid earthy taste too.

My go-to for lentils of the brown-green-black varieties is to turn them into a quick salad, with some elements of spices (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, paprika, chilli, sumac are favourites), olive oil, acid (balsamic vinegar or lemon juice), herbs (coriander, chives, parsley, mint), powerful flavour pockets (sundried tomatoes, capers, caramelized onions+garlic, olives), crunch (toasted seeds or chopped nuts), and probably something a bit creamy (thick yoghurt, tahini, feta) and something fresh (chopped tomatoes, leaves, maybe cucumber). I thought I must have written out a million of these salads on here, but on checking found not that many. Endless variants possible!

The beluga lentils were so pretty and tasty I wanted to keep it relatively simple, so cut back on spices etc and made a salad with just some basic components.

1 cup beluga lentils cooked with a bay leaf and a couple of peeled cloves of garlic in 1 3/4 cups water
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt+pepper
2 tbsp chopped parsley
6 medium-small tomatoes, chopped (or sundried tomatoes)
2 cm lump of feta, crumbled
2 tbsp chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Cook the beluga lentils with bay leaf and garlic. They should take about 15-20 min. When done (slight bite remaining, no liquid left), mix the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper in the bottom of a serving bowl, tip the lentils in and mix together. Taste to check seasoning. Once they have cooled a little, add parsley, tomatoes and feta and toss. Add hazelnuts if using, check seasoning, and serve.


Very pretty: purple lentils, white feta, red tomatoes, green parsley. And just as tasty as its more complicated relatives.

Carrot and coriander salad

We have a food processor in our current place, which makes grated root vegetables a breeze. So, I made this Delia recipe in a few minutes' work, with no grated knuckles.

1 lb carrot, peeled
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp coriander seed
2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and sliced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
pinch cayenne pepper

Grate the carrots finely. Put in a bowl and mix with vinegar and salt. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours (preferably overnight). If necessary pour off excess juice (drink it!).

Dry-roast the coriander seeds in a small frying pan over a medium heat. Tip into a mortar and crush the roasted seeds.

Heat the oil in the same frying pan, add the onion and fry until golden; allow to cool slightly then drain the oil through a sieve on to the carrots. The onion has now served its purpose and can be used in another dish (I put it in a lentil salad).

Add the coriander seeds, garlic and cayenne to the carrots, mix and serve.


I like this salad, but remembered two things I wasn't sure about: first, is it really necessary to leave it so long and pour off the juice? Second, the onion oil part results in very little oil and seems like an unnecessary faff as you have to do something with the cooked onion and surely you don't get much flavour from that tiny bit of oil, especially beside loads of tasty coriander seed.

Red cabbage, radish, sesame and wasabi

We had a red cabbage in the fridge, and three tubes of wasabi to use up before we leave (not going to happen)... I'd stumbled across these coleslaw recipes a couple of times, and this time thought I'd borrow the wasabi dressing idea for a red cabbage salad.

~1/2 a smallish red cabbage
2 medium-large purple radishes, peeled and grated
2 medium carrots, peeled and grated
~ 1 tbsp chopped chives

~1 tbsp peeled, finely chopped ginger
~1 tbsp wasabi paste
~ 2 tsp honey
juice of ~ 1/3 lime
~1 tsp umeboshi plum vinegar (optional)
~1 tbsp cider vinegar
~1 tsp sesame oil
~ 1 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp white sesame seeds and 1 tbsp black sesame seeds, toasted

Finely shred the cabbage and put in a medium bowl with the grated radishes and carrots. Add the chives. In a small bowl, whisk together the ginger, wasabi, honey, lime juice, vinegars and oils. Pour the dressing over the vegetables, add the toasted seeds, toss and serve. Best eaten immediately but keeps OK for a couple of days in the fridge.


Another fresh+tasty Winter salad.

Grated Petersilienwurzel (parsley root), carrot and apple

I discovered Petersilienwurzel the first time I went to Germany with S, and was instantly intrigued: it's like parsley (+S loves parsley), but it's a root not a leaf. I didn't get to try it that time, but I bought some seeds and tried to grow them back in Norwich. No success.

While M was here we took her to Wegmans to stock up on Thanksgiving in a tin (based on a conversation with our Bostonian friend N, most traditional Thanksgiving dishes involve combinations of things out of tins). She ended up with a good selection - some things Thanksgiving-y (tin-shaped cranberry jelly, tinned pumpkin); also other American / local specialities (Boston brown bread in a tin). While there, S+I accidentally ended up in the produce section, where we came upon chestnuts (kurigohan happened, and it was fiiiinnne), elephant garlic, celeriac, and, resplendent beside said celeriac, petersilienwurzel! Wegmans truly does have EVERYTHING!

We roasted some in chunks with a mixture of other roots (carrots, celeriac, beetroot) and tofu, and it was really delicious - incredibly sweet (reminiscent of parsnip; they are quite closely related), with a delicate, slightly parsley-y / perhaps more parsnip-y taste.

After chatting with S's Austrian friend L, and eating her excellent vegetable strudel and beetroot, horseradish and caraway salad (from her grandmother's recipes), I decided to also follow her / her grandmother's suggestion for petersilienwurzel and grate it with carrot and apple. I threw in a few other things too, and it ended up a really yummy Winter salad - juicy and fresh and sweet.

5 small petersilienwurzel (parsley root), peeled and grated (celeriac is a good alternative / addition)
3 medium carrots, peeled and grated
1 medium apple, cored and grated
1-2 tbsp cider vinegar
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
~1 tsp chopped chives
handful of raisins (preferably golden)
handful of pecan pieces

Grate the petersilienwurzel (and/or celeriac), carrots and apple into a medium bowl. Add the cider vinegar, olive oil and seasoning (quickly, to avoid browning) and toss. Add the chives, raisins and pecans and toss. Ideally eat straight away, but it keeps OK in the fridge for a few days (consider just adding the pecans last minute if you want to serve it later).

Kale salad with cashew dressing

One night a week or so ago S had an express wish for a kale salad with white sauce. He wanted to use almond milk, but I couldn't work out how that would make things thick and creamy enough for his dream. So I suggested soaking cashews. I put some in water in the fridge a couple of nights ago, and last night S completed his dream salad. I was sure I'd seen the cashew dressing idea somewhere, but now I have no idea where, so we just made it up.

For the dressing:
1 cup raw cashews
2 cups water
1-2 tbsp white miso
1/2 clove garlic, peeled
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp lemon juice (or cider vinegar)
1-2 tbsp almond milk (and more for good consistency)
black pepper

Rest of the salad:
1 bunch kale
2 medium tomatoes
~2 tbsp toasted flaked almonds
~1 tbsp dried sour cherries

Put the cashews in a container with the water and leave in the fridge to soak, at least overnight; fine for several days (we used ours after ~ 48 hours).

When ready for salad, drain the cashews. Put into blender cup and add miso, olive oil, lemon juice, almond milk and black pepper. Blend the dressing until smooth, adding more almond milk if needed, until a good, creamy consistency is reached. Taste for seasoning.

Wash the kale, remove stalks and tear the leaves into bite sized pieces. Put in a serving bowl. Add the dressing and mix well with your hands, massaging the kale as you go.

Chop the tomatoes roughly and add them to the salad with the almonds and sour cherries. Toss and taste for seasoning. Eat straight away, or keeps pretty well in the fridge (consider keeping toasted almonds separately if planning to store it).