Kale Potato Leek Soup by Kemal

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. golden potatoes
• 1 large bunch of kale, chopped with stems removed
• 7 cloves garlic, diced
• 20 baby carrots, diced
• Imagine Organic Creamy Potato Leek soup, one 16-oz. package
• salt
• pepper
• water

Instructions:

• Clean the potatoes and then quarter them with the skins on.
• Boil the potatoes in water.
• Drain the potato water and set the potatoes aside. (I saved my potato water to use as a sourdough starter. More information about that here.)
• Clean and chop the kale, discarding the stems.
• Put the kale in a large pot with enough water to cover it. Bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium high.
• Dice the carrots and garlic, and then add them to the pot with the kale when you’re done.
• When the carrots are soft, add the diced potatoes, the potato leek soup, and then season to taste with salt and pepper.
• Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes.

What’s funny is that I’m not a big fan of kale, but I loved how it tasted in the coleslaw. I’m really glad that I’ve found a way to incorporate this very nutritious vegetable into my diet.

Last night I was craving cabbage (that happens to me a lot) and so I decided to make a coleslaw similar to the one I had in Whole Foods. I didn’t have any cashews on hand, so I used walnuts. The salad in Whole Foods didn’t have mandarin orange juice in the coleslaw that I could taste, but I wanted my salad to taste even fruitier so I added the juice to sweeten it up.

I also used a balsamic vinaigrette instead of oil and vinegar. I love oil and vinegar but I wanted to see how it would taste with balsamic vinaigrette. It was great! I also wanted to make a festive looking dish, so I decorated with extra mandarin oranges. Here’s how it looked when I was done:

Cranberry Mandarin Coleslaw with Walnuts and Kale (Inspired by a salad I tried on Whole Foods’ Salad bar)

Ingredients:

• green cabbage, shredded
• kale, cut into small pieces
• celery, (half stalk) diced
• carrots, shredded
• cranberries, dried
• unsweetened mandarin oranges and the juice (2 four oz. cans)
• walnut pieces
• balsamic vinaigrette (you can substitute oil and vinegar)
• Optional: purple cabbage, shredded (This would add another pretty color to the plate and would taste great too!)

Instructions:

1. Clean the cabbage, kale, carrots, and celery
2. Shred the cabbage and carrots
3. Cut the kale into small pieces and dice the celery.
4. Put all of the above vegetable into a large bowl, and then add a can of mandarin oranges and its juice, the dried cranberries, and walnuts.
5. Drizzle the mandarin orange juice from both cans over the coleslaw.
6. Then, drizzle some balsamic vinaigrette over the salad and toss.
7. Put the coleslaw on a large serving dish and then decorate around the salad with the mandarin oranges from the second can.

This salad not only makes a festive dish for the holidays, but it also is extremely healthy. If you’re concerned about filling up too much on starches and desserts, take a nice sized helping of this salad to help fill you up and satisfy your sweet tooth. If you’re watching your carbs closely, instead of using cranberries and oranges, use berries instead. It’s such a delicious salad that I’m going to make this again and again. In fact, I think I’ll have some right now as a matter of fact. How ’bout you?