A New Kale Salad (for me)

This salad is inspired by the restaurant Salvio Volpe and a blog site of which I cannot remember the name - but it seems to be written by a woman in perhaps New York state, and the theme is 'getting shit done' or something like that. I think she used to write for the New York times, if she doesn't still do so. Humorous blog....wish I could remember the name.

One of the things I love about this salad is that it reminds me of my sister as I stand, precisely mincing the kale into even, delicate shreds (the perfect size to get stuck in my teeth!). It is a super easy salad that can be made up of only a few ingredients (kale, oil, lemon, garlic, Parmesan, salt and pepper) as a side salad but also expands out nicely to a texturally rich one dish meal with the addition of chicken, beluga lentils, etc.

This salad lasts days in the fridge, dressed (add the cheese and hemp just before serving to keep the textures defined). The dressing is a riff on a Ceasar salad dressing. You could substitute apple cider dressing, or create a lighter salad (less oil) by just tossing the greens with a really nice (but NOT $200 dollar nice) balsamic dressing and olive oil.

Ingredients for the Giant Bowl (as seen above) - serves 10 standard servings (maybe 12)

3 bunches kale (I used one bunch black, one bunch curly green and one bunch curly purple)
Approximately 1 1/2 cups grated parmesan
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup hemp seeds
1 cup olive oil
2 lemons
6 to 8 white anchovies, rinsed in tepid/warm water
2 cloves garlic
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Chop the kale into thin slices, then chop across these roughly every 1/2 inch to give you delicate, finely sliced kale. Transfer the kale to a large bowl.
2.Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, anchovies, garlic, salt and pepper in a blender and whirl until smooth.
3. Toss the kale with 3/4 of the salad dressing - reserve the rest to adjust the final salad balance. If the remaining dressing is not needed for the kale salad, reserve for other salads in the fridge.
4. You can either store the salad as is in the fridge, and top with cheese and hemp seeds as needed, or if you are serving the whole thing in one evening, toss in the cheese and hemp seeds, fluff a bit so you get a nice colour and textural mix and serve.

One of my favourite flavour combinations is kale with pecans, so of course as soon as I started eating the bowl pictured above, I made the following addition - so you can also consider adding toasted pecans. The pecans pictured below are salt and peppered for extra punch.