Raw Kale Salad

Now I know what you must be thinking, all salad are raw. Not entirely. If you add cheese, eggs, croutons, bottled dressing, roasted peppers, then you have just 'killed' your living salad. With that said, you will need to make your own dressing and for the most part form scratch. Not as difficult as you might think. And I found this lovely gem in Alissa Cohen's book Living on Live Food. Which is a wonderful book. I plan on purchasing this myself on my next paycheck.

The book is broken down into three different sections, so to say. there is the informational section, the in's and out's of raw food. then there is the testimonial section, with before and after photos. then there is the recipe section. My boss let me borrow the book to find some new recipes, and find them I did, and just hours before my shift at work. Nothing like being a last minute Larry. But it worked out wonderfully. And what people kept asking me the most was, 'What is this dressing?' Well low and behold, there was no dressing, it was incorporated into the salad already. What a concept.

So...without further adieu, let's get on to this salad recipe.

1 head kale, shredded (I prefer lacinato)
1 cup tomato diced
1 cup avocado (About 2 Haas)(make sure they are ripe, or this will be a bit difficult)
2&1/2 T olive oil
1&1/2 T lemon juice
1 t Celtic sea salt (I used regular sea salt)
1/2 t cayenne pepper (do not omit, you will regret it)
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Rinse and dry the kale. Remove any woody stems. If need be, slice the kale down the middle so you do not have large pieces of greens going into your salad. Place a few leaves on top of each other and shred as thin as possible. Do this until all your kale is shredded.

In another bowl, chop your tomato and set aside.

In a large bowl add all your other ingredients. Squish together all ingredients until the avocado is thoroughly mixed in with all ingredients. There may still be a few tiny lumps in there, but very few. Now takes a handful of kale and add to the dressing, squeezing the kale until the dressing is coating the kale. Now grab another handful of kale and do the same. Keep doing this until all the kale is mixed with the dressing.

Take the tomatoes and add to the kale salad. You can either toss them into the salad itself or leave them on top. I prefer them to be gently tossed in. That way they will have the dressing on them as well.

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I had so many customers loving this, even if they were not raw foodists. They realized that they were able to, with this recipe not have to worry about bottled dressing. Who knew!!!???