Pinned It & Did It! Parmesan Kale Salad

On my way back from Singapore in February, I had a nice long layover in SoCal which meant I could join my cousin and her hubs for a quick dinner before heading back to Chicago - along with surprise guest, my dad! The 4 of us went down to Tender Greens and I had this totally killer Kale Salad as one of my sides. I came back to Chicago try to convince the Baconator that we had to try to make this ourselves and he pretty much laughed at me.  "Raw kale is bitter, that would taste terrible," he said, brushing the suggestion aside, but I still couldn't get this simple salad out of my head. The menu simply stated: kale, parmesan, roasted garlic vinaigrette. Really? That's it? How in the world was I supposed to replicate? Clearly I couldn't, so I gave up.

I was at the farmers market last week and saw some gorgeous kale on sale and I started thinking back to that salad, so... (To the tune of Mighty Mouse) Here comes Pinterest to save the day! I searched all the pins and found this awesome recipe from The Slender Student.

Pin it!

Here's the recipe from The Slender Student

Ingredients:1 bunch of kale
3 T chopped onion
2 T minced garlic
1 T olive oil
juice of one lemon
2 T shredded parmesan cheese

Directions:1. Thoroughly rinse and dry your kale. Chop into bite size pieces and place in a large bowl.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together your onion, minced garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and parmesan cheese.
3. Pour the dressing over the kale and massage with your hands for a minute or two until the leaves are slightly wilted.
4. Refrigerate for at least an hour before eating to allow the kale to absorb the flavor.

The ingredients were simple as was the prep, so off I went to clean, tear and massage my kale into a delicious splendor. The recipe called for a bunch of kale, which I assumed didn't mean the GIANT bunch I got from the market, so I added some extra garlic and onion, but otherwise followed the instructions to a T - don't do that folks, it gives you crazy bad garlic breath!  I am also a sucker for shredded parm so I added a bit more of that goodness... and good it was :)

Yum! Did it!

I'll definitely make this bad boy again, but next time I'm going to try and roast the garlic in my oven before making the dressing since the current version is hot with the raw garlic flavor.  Do you have a favorite Kale salad recipe that is your go to?

Love and Bacon,
Kelsey

Happy Easter!

Firstly, Happy Easter!! We didn't do church or anything, but we did have friends over and do a ham and the whole thing. We've been trying to do paleo for the last couple weeks, so we made sure that everything we were eating today fit the bill.  Since we needed sides, I clearly went directly to Pinterest to figure it out and found pastel deviled eggs - perfect for Easter!

Source

The recipe is pretty straight forward, and to be honest, I didn't follow the filling at all as I've been making my mom's version since college.

So firstly, I boiled eggs. Once they had cooled, I halved them and put the yolks in a gallon bag.

After spending more time than I'd like to admit deciding which colors I wanted, I put the halves in a cup of cold water with a few drops of food coloring and a capful of white vinegar and let them sit for 45 minutes. 

While these bad boys marinated in the dye, I set out making the filling.  It's pretty easy actually, especially now that I've been using the zip top bag method. Take all the yolks and put them in the bag, add about 1/2 cup mayo (we used homemade paleo mayo), add 1/4 cup finely chopped onion, add 1/8 cup finely chopped pickles (about 1-2 pickle spears), 2-3 tablespoons yellow mustard, and salt and pepper to taste. Then seal the bag and mash the heck out of it!! Once the filling is sufficiently mashed and you've seasoned to your liking, snip off the corner and BOOM - instant pastry bag perfect for filling the little yolks! (Thank you Pinterest for that tip! No pun intended...)

Once they got to the color I wanted, I set them out on some paper towels to dry off a bit 

Ta Da! Easter Deviled Eggs!

What did you do for Easter? Any Pinspirational Projects?

Love and Bacon,

Kelsey