Kale & Quinoa Salad

The first time we ever tried a recipe with quinoa in it (to make these tacos, which I highly recommend, btw) Steve came home from that week's grocery store run and said that there were a lot of different flavors of "kwin-o-ah" (emphasis on the "o") and he wasn't quite sure which one he should get. I honestly had no clue what he was saying at first, which quickly became hilarious and adorable when I realized he was talking about quinoa. And that's my funny, if not anti-climactic, story about quinoa. In Steve's defense, I will never run the risk of misspelling it since I say "kwin-o-ah" to myself just about every time I write it out. Thanks, man.

Last night we tried another kale salad recipe. And despite the common denominators of kale and chickpeas, this one is really pretty different from the chopped kale salad we tried during CSA Week 1, which is exciting. Yay for variety! And like the first kale salad, this too was delicious.

Kale & Quinoa Salad on enjoy it

Used From Our CSA
kale
scallions (in place of red onion)

Thoughts on the Recipe
- We halved this, because I did think we would have enough kale for the full version. But as I washed and chopped it, I did start to feel like it was a lot more than I initially guessed we had. So I made the full amount of dressing just to make sure we wouldn't wind up short on that. We had a little dressing leftover in the end, which will be great on any green salad later this week. In fact I would definitely make just the dressing again to have on hand on it's own - simple but it works!
- I saw the note in the instructions to add the dressing early on (to help wilt the kale) a little late in the process of getting everything ready. It's good advice and next time I'll definitely do that first, before cooking the quinoa or chopping the onion. 
- The leftovers today were great. If you plan on having any, I'd just recommend leaving the cashews out and adding them in as you eat it. Cashews get all weird and rubbery after sitting in a dressed salad for a while. Anyone else experienced this?

So there you have it: a delicious kale & quinoa salad. Let me know your thoughts if you get the chance to try it out! I'll post again soon with a Week 3 recap, and some links to other recipes we used this week that I didn't write about in detail.