Why yes, it’s another salad.
Sorry about that…
I have been loving on salads lately. Big time!
Dare I admit that I still have quite a few lined up?
Dare I admit that I’ ve been enjoying salads so much lately, I even have a “breakfast salad” lined up?
Really, I do!
But hey, I mean, look at that. Aren’t salads a thing of beauty? So fresh, so colorful… how could anyone pass on such a gorgeous looking dish.
I’d been hooked on kale for a couple of months, now it looks like it’s collard greens’ turn to get my attention.
Actually, it had been a while since I’d given them any at all. Since I’ve been without an iguana, I think.
Did I ever tell you how I used to own iguanas?
Every second week, I would make this unbelievably huge batch of salad for them and I would bag it in Ziplocs so it would stay good for a while and I’d have a great source of food readily available for them.
The only problem is, I ended up eating almost all of it.
OK, I admit that it might sound weird. I mean ewwwwww…. who would want to eat iguana food, right?
Yeah… I know!
But seriously, hear me out. This salad was made from all of these incredible greens:
- Collards
- Kale
- Dandelions
- Beet Greens
- Mustard Greens
- Escarole
- Chickory
- Arugula
- Watercress
This very salad was in fact directly responsible for my discovering pretty much all of the aforementioned greens. All of them found their way into my regular diet for a while after that.
I remembered collards being one of my faves. I usually like to remove the stems, rolls the leaves really really tight and chop them very finely.
I’d go plain nuts for them! They’re just as good as spinach, if not better! And God knows I LOVE spinach!
Now, the grocery stores that I usually go to don’t carry collard greens, so I had pretty much stopped eating forgotten about them.
That’s until I started shopping at this ethnic food store again, the one where I used to buy all the greens for my iguanas’ salad, and my eyes happened to lock on the pile…
That’s when it all came back to me.
Oh, the love!
If you’ve never tried collards, I urge you to. You won’t regret it, I swear!
Especially not if you try them in this particular salad.
It’s just plain glorious!
INGREDIENTS
- 2-3 cups collard greens, finely shredded, leaves only
- 1 celery rib, finely sliced
- 3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
- 1 Red Delicious apple, peel on, diced (save a few slices to garnish, if desired)
- 25g pecans, coarsely chopped
- 30g blue cheese, crumbled
- 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
- ¼ cup unsweetened all natural apple juice
- 2 tbsp cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- ½ tsp date paste
- ¼ tsp each salt and pepper
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon thyme, chopped
- 1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
- 1/8 tsp guar gum
INSTRUCTIONS
- Add all the ingredients of the dressing to your small food processor or blender and process until nice and smooth. Set aside.
- Toast the pecans in a small non stick pan, over medium heat, for about 2 minutes or until they become fragrant. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Add shredded collards, mushrooms, celery and half the apple to a small mixing bowl. Add vinaigrette and mix until well coated.
- Transfer to serving plate, add the rest of the apple, pecans and blue cheese.
- Garnish with apple slices and sprigs of thyme, if desired.
I think I never tried mustard green and chickory (maybe in coffee in New Orleens
). And I never even heard of Escarole. But the salad looks delicious, so I suspect they taste great! One more brilliant recipe. Is this how you get the energy to do 92 km races 
?
Thanks so much Elana! You really need to look for those glorious greens. I think it’s a shame that most interesting greens aren’t more readily available. Unfortunately, most stores tend to offer iceberg, romaine and frisée and that’s about it… there are so many different kinds of greens that are so much better for you and have so much more flavor, too! I’m real happy that I got into the habit of shopping at that ethnic store for fruits and veggies again. Now I only need to find a farmers market in my area!
NEVER apologize for salads! This one looks absolutely delish!
If there was a like button on here, I’d definitely hit it right about now! Thank so much for that! What a great thing to say, that is. And I’ll keep that in mind… thank you!
Hey, first rule of survival in this world of ours: ‘DON’T EXPLAIN, DON’T COMPLAIN’!!! Wish I had been there to share
!
And I would’ve loved to share with you!!!
That is too funny! But, hey, if I fed my iguanas yummy salad, I would be eating their food, too!
Maybe I should get into the habit of making iguana salad again, even if I don’t have iguanas anymore… I’d just have to find a different name for it! Then I could probably even write a blog post about it!
This looks delicious! I eat a lot of kale, but rarely collard greens. I will have to get some to try this salad – although I will probably just buy toasted pecans. It’s been so hot lately that I can’t bear to make anything that involves heat!
Oh but toasting pecans only takes a minute or two over medium heat, so it’s not going to heat up the entire house. I too, tend to eat a lot of kale, so I thought I would switch to collards for a change. I really have been loving on the stuff since!