This Sprouted Kitchen recipe for spicy butternut squash and kale chopped salad was a fun twist on some of my favorite ingredients. Kyle loved it. P thought it was all fine, but he doesn’t like butternut squash much so, you know. V, who usually devours butternut squash as fast as I can get it on her plate, was NOT into the seasonings on it at all and required mega chip bribery to get through the meal. She happily ate all the kale she could get her hands on though, which is a change, so that was a nice surprise.
We added the feta to our bowls separately.
In hindsight, they were both too tired to adequately evaluate how much they liked this meal. But I will say, since making this we have had kale for four more meals (I know, I know, I like kale way too much) but V has totally jumped on board the kale train. She’s SO down. Previously she hasn’t been able to “get” the concept of chewing lettuce for so long, but something clicked (maybe the sheer amount of it being shoved in her face, ha) and she really seems to like it. She eats it first out of a salad of a bunch of other things. I could not possibly be more proud.
Speaking of proud. This track took us (me) way too long to construct. Hellooooo rainy day activity.
They asked to take this photo, too. Together. Showing off their track. While V holds her baby doll and purse. <– not even going to comment on that
Go make that salad. Oh and this one.
It’s a vegan kale Caesar with home-made dressing that isn’t cashew based. I love cashew based dressings, but it’s fun to change things up every once in a while. This one has sunflower seeds, pine nuts, and miso, among other things. It was THICK and I made a ton so I could have heaps of leftover Caesar salad throughout the week.
I made tempeh croutons for the adults, and roasted chickpeas for the kiddos.
With sourdough on the side for some.
But just a massive pile of veg for meeeeeee.
The greens here are kale, romaine, and shaved brussels sprouts. Heavenly. And the “cheesy” topping is nooch and sunflower seeds. I omitted all the garlic in the recipe, and didn’t tell Kyle there were capers in the dressing.
And guess what? Everyone loved it.
Oh and here’s one more…I swear I’m not on some New Year’s reset or anything…I just love kale. It’s so cool to hate on the trendy green but I refuse to hide my adoration. It’s 100% genuine.
I’ve made this kale waldorf before, and probably linked to it back then, but here’s the recipe again just in case.
Kyle ooo-ed and aah-ed over the dressing, and the kids couldn’t decide which component was their favorite (I’m partial to the freshly roasted walnuts, personally, but I swear they couldn’t rank them because they liked it all). I feel like I’m totally jinxing myself by writing this but it makes my hippie heart so happy to have my babes love the exact meals I love and crave.
I served it with roasted sweet potato “fries” which were the discovery of 2016 and remain a hit.
Super hippie foodies in the making!
Now you have three stellar ways to consume kale. Go out with a bang this January!
