Our Domicile

While visiting my beloved friend Inga this weekend, she introduced me to a crazy awesome/delicious salad green mix that I’m itching to share with the world.

I’ll be honest, as we wandered through the produce section of her food co-op I thought it that our evening salad was going to be one of those “it’s good for you” not “it’s so darned tasty” affairs, but boy howdy was I wrong. I should have had more faith as every time Inga and I have the occasion to cook together, extreme yumminess always prevails. Anyway, if, like me, you’re suspicious of this mix: get over it quick. Instead, embrace this mix as your new friend in delicious healthy eating and get chopping.

Inga’s Salad Greens of Maximum Health & Deliciousness
Makes enough for one week or so of salads and will keep that long in the fridge.

• one bunch Kale (variety of your choice, I personally love Lacinto)
• one bunch of Swiss Chard
• one bunch of cilantro*
• one bunch of parsley
• one lemon
• pinch o’sea salt

Thoroughly wash and dry all greens. This can take a while. The good news is that this salad mix will keep in your fridge for a week, so you don’t have to do this every time you want salad. My suggestion is to just fill the sink with cold water and dunk the greens entirely. Then dry.

De-stem your kale, taking off all the hard woody stem parts, however high up the kale this needs to be. Ditto for your chard. Pick through your cilantro and parsley and take off some of the larger stems, but don’t worry too much about de-stemming as the stems are tasty too.

Now start chopping. Chop your kale quite finely on a large cutting board. You want to err on the side of chopping the kale quite fine as it will be easier to digest that way. Transfer to a large bowl or container with lid. Now do the same for the chard, though you can be a bit rougher with your chop here. And now the same for the herbs, including the stems. Add them all to the bowl.

Juice one half to a full lemon (after you’ve done this once or twice you may alter your preference based on how lemon-y you like things). Toss lemon juice with greens. Add a pinch of sea salt and toss. Now cover and you can keep it in the fridge for a week or so. (Due to the acid in the lemon, best to not store in a plastic container).

When making salad, simply take out what you want to use and add the rest of your ingredients, including more dressing if you wish (we added chopped tomatoes to ours and a balsamic/sesame dressing, but I’d use them just like regular lettuce in pretty much any salad recipe). You can also use these greens to add to stir fries, soups, omelettes or what have you while you’re cooking over the week. As I said, it does take a bit of time, say 20 min from start to finish, to get this prepped but then that’s your main salad work done for the week and with those tasty greens in the fridge you’re sure to eat more of them.

*If you’re one of those people who hates cilantro with a fiery passion, feel free to leave it out, don’t pass up the whole recipe for one hang up.