Ingredients for my impromptu hotel room kale salad
So I’m staying in a hotel room and needed to bring a dish to a potluck. The solution was a variation on my Wilted Kale Salad using the following improvisations:
Step 1: purchased a 1 lb bag of chopped kale at Target grocery. This was intended for juicing, according to the label; the size of the chopped leaves was fine but I had to go through and tear many of the pieces off their bits of stem.
Step 2: distributed 1 t salt (from a shaker) over the trimmed kale; worked it in and rubbed for 2 minutes until kale became shiny and was reduced in volume by 1/3.
Step 3: scrounged the following ingredients from breakfast buffet bar: about 2 T each dates (which I chopped), walnuts, golden raisins and pumpkin seeds. Also had access to some red onion so I mixed in about 2 T.
The finished product
Step 4: add 1 T olive oil and 1 T vinegar (I had some available, but you could borrow from the cruets in the coffee shop) to the kale. Toss; add the mix ins; serve immediately or refrigerate an hour or longer. I brought along some blue cheese but served it on the side out of consideration for some vegans at the party.
The result wasn’t 100% as good as the original but was surprisingly close, considering the total lack of preparation time and planning. And the guests at the potluck liked my hotel room kale salad a lot.
