No sweetener needed for these oats – just a super ripe banana and a huuuuuge amount of plum chia jam. Stone fruit season is when I start adding gobs of fruit puree to everything I can in place of sugar. Pancake batter, oats, etc. And yet I still haven’t worked up the nerve to try flavoring my kombucha with actual fruit. I feel like my ginger and lemon ones are so solid, why risk messing it up, but now that we have 100 nectarines that are ripening all at once, I’m thinking about it… However the idea of fruit sitting out for a few days in the warm garage has me kinda scared. Won’t it just grow bacteria?? Like the bad kind?
I massaged the kale with all the bacon grease after it had cooled ever so slightly. I just poured it off the pan straight into the greens.
This salad was Pattycakes’ request.
He asked for a salad with kale, bacon, and dates, and I just added the candied walnuts.
Not pictured is the half of avocado I added after.
If you don’t use avo, you can sub in cheese as another option to get more kcals in and make the salad a full meal.
Kale Salad with Bacon Wrapped Dates
Ingredients:
- 1 package of bacon (12 slabs)
- 12 dates
- 1-2 large bunches of kale, destemmed and ripped into bite sized pieces
- 1 cup candied walnuts
- 1 avocado, diced
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- goat chevre [optional]
Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 400.
Slice the slabs of bacon in half so you have 24 pieces. Remove the pits from the dates and slice them in half. Then wrap each date halve with bacon and rest it on a baking sheet with the seam down (so it stays wrapped up). Bake for 15 minutes.
Once the bacon wrapped dates are done and cool enough to touch, set them on a plate and pour off the grease into a large salad bowl with the kale. Massage until the kale is wilted. Add the balsamic and salt and pepper as you want.
Add the nuts, avo, and cheese and serve.
Yum!
Dessert night!
I took off two nights in a row this week and while it was hard, I am proud that I’m making a better effort to reduce the number of nights I go to town on the chocolate.
Side note:
Leftover bacon wrapped dates are a very good thing. Makes lunches the next day a HUGE hit!
That is so funny- P is obviously your kid and has some fantastic cooking ideas!
Don’t mess with fresh fruit in the bottle of kombucha. I tried and tried and ended up with totally flat not actually tasty stuff. However! There’s a stupid easy amazing way to do fruity flavors- literally just add the fruit puree to your glass and then your lemony booch and stir. The fruit flavor is a lot stronger and more fresh too. I used some mashed blackberries with my ginger lemon booch last week and that was delightful.
Good idea!