Kale Salad wtih Garlic and Onion Dressing

The infamous salad I talked about in my last post is one that I can't even take credit for but I'll happily make it any day! I had dinner with Hillery a few weeks ago and she whipped this bad boy up in no time.

I have to say, salad can be one of the most mundane dishes to make so if your looking to making something super delicious and quick for your next meal or party you've got to try this!

Recipe:
For the salad:
1 bunch kale, stems removed and roughly chopped or torn
1 red pepper, diced
1/2 cup grated Parmesan

For the Dressing:
4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1/2 onion, diced very small
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

Directions:
1) Toss the kale, parmesan and red pepper together then set aside.
2) Heat oil over medium heat then add garlic slices. Cook for about five minutes until the garlic starts to brown. Once browned, remove the garlic from the oil. Set on a paper towel to absorb oil. Next, add onion to oil and cook until softened. Finally, add balsamic to heated oil and onion. The dressing is complete
3) Crumble cooked garlic with your hands and add to the salad. This adds an amazing garlic crunch to each bite.
4) Top salad with dressing. Pour enough to just cover. Also, don't feel like you need to add all of the onion to the salad. A little goes a long way.

I am hooked on this salad and to my surprise so are my boyfriend and his friends! You know a salad is good when guys dig it too.

Putting my Cooking Class to Work

If you read my post about the cooking class I took in April, you'll recall that I learned how to make vinaigrette from scratched...and loved every minute of it. I have a bag full of frozen strawberries in my freezer from Costco so I figured I might as well try making a strawberry vinaigrette.


There isn't much to making this and you can't really using measurements so here is what I did: I thawed about 6 berries and threw them in a blender (or food processor, but I don't have one.) I added a little red wine vinegar then a decent amount of olive oil. Blended it until smooth and added a little bit of pepper.

I gave it a taste and found it to be too vinegary for my liking so a added more oil. The end result was a bit frothy so I'm not 100% sure if I did this correctly, but it tasted REALLY good over fresh baby spinach. I'm looking forward to trying this again with other berries.