Cucumber Kale Salad

Cucumber Kale Salad. I’m so excited to be sharing this recipe with you. One of the best things I am doing this year is taking a Professional Plantbased Culinary Certification Program on-line through Rouxbe http://rouxbe.com/

I’m totally loving it too!

Yes I can cook and at the same time I never had the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of cooking. Different cooking techniques, how to balance and build flavour, cutting skills and so much more. When I am done, I think I’ll be able to make pretty much anything!

One of the first tasks was to take kale and prepare it a number of ways to see how it changed the flavour and texture of the kale. At the end there was a recipe we could try and that is what I am sharing with you.

The other cool thing about this recipe is it gave me an opportunity to figure out how to use the mandolin that I’ve had for about 2 years. It all seemed so complicated and in fact its pretty simple and boy can it cut food beautifully. Stay tuned and you’ll find out what I did with my mandolin.

Sound interesting? Are you just a little bit curious? If so, follow me….

Cucumber Kale Salad

Cucumber Kale Salad, it is such a pretty salad! I think it would be a wonderful dish to serve when you have company or just want to dress up a meal. You actually make the bowl from slices of cucumber, totally cool, right?

I made the salads ahead of time, a great feature of working with kale is it holds its basic texture even if it has a sauce on it. I love to have as much done as possible if I am having guests over, then when they arrive I can spend my time visiting them rather than cooking.

What you’ll need for your Cucumber Kale Salad:

2 cups of prepped kale (washed, spines removed and broken
Yummy kale, so good for you and delicious! Choose organic kale if you can.

into bite sized pieces)
1 avocado
½-1 lemon (squeeze over hand to capture seeds)
1-2 green onions, finely chopped
½ c diced tomatoes or cherry tomatoes cut in half
2 radishes, finely sliced (I used the
Prepping all my ingredients first – one of the things I am learning through my Rouxbe course.

mandolin)
English cucumber – long thin slices (with skin on) using a mandolin (thin enough to bend and not break)
Salt and pepper (optional)

How to make your Cucumber Kale Salad:

You will make individual salads for each guest and a separate plate to present to each person their own beautiful salad bowl
After you have prepared the kale, dice up the avocado in the shell (seed removed) and mash in a bowl till fairly smooth
Squeeze the lemon juice on the kale to keep it from browning and to add some flavour
I put my avocado directly on the kale. Next time I will mash it up first.
Now massage this mixture into the kale (get in there and get your hands dirty). Be sure each piece of kale is covered in the avocado mixture
Now get in there with your hands (clean of course) and massage the avocado into the kale. What a fun mess!
Add in some of your chopped green onion, save some for the top
Give it a taste and decide if you want a little salt and pepper, season to your taste
Take one to two slices of cucumber
It took me a few tries to see how thick I should make the cucumber slices – my first time using the mandolin.

(depends on how long they are and how much salad you want for each serving). Put the cucumber on an individual plate, standing up and form it into a circle. The ends will stick together and you have now made your salad bowl. How cool is that!

Use a nice plate, I like white – it shows off the food more. Form your cucumber into a nice sized bowl. The ends will stick together beautifully!
Add a handful of the kale mixture into your salad bowl
Garnish with with the remaining green onion, tomato and radishes.
Add in your tomatoes and a few more onion pieces and then garnish with the radish slices. I love it!

Wow can you believe how beautiful it looks! Your guests will be in awe of your cooking skills. I just love this little idea and I can think of a million more ways to put this together.