Well. One of the saddest food losses I have had in the past year has been kale. I know… “Kale! No kale! Woe is me!” Seriously though… one of my favorite foods and life staples was massaged kale salad with tahini garlic dressing. Gaaaahhhh…
If you’re new to my blog… the short of it was that I ended up in the hospital due to bodily shut down, food intolerance to the extreme, tachycardia and basically just frightfully close to losing myself with all the awful things that can come with autoimmune disease. I discovered what was wrong frankly through prayer and research and have been on the mend since… but my body could only tolerate bone broth, avocados, preserved lemons and certain animal proteins and fats for MONTHS. It was horrible, but healing. I was like a sad little puppy at every meal. Who the heck is allergic to lettuce? I love lettuce, greens… all the healthy veg. Veggie veggie girl. Anyway to my point… I have oh so very slowly been reincorporating vegetables… and then sometimes I have to back off again and let my gut recover because I’ll be going along okay and then find myself reacting again. I have been trying with the KALE for MONTHS!!! I fermented a bag of Costco kale salad with some salt and lemons a couple months back and gave it a couple weeks before trying it… and NO joy. I stored it in the fridge and a month later it was okay! Hooray for the gut healing protocol! The only downside was that it looked positively unappetizing. Like… a pukey pooey brown green color. Nope. Not bloggable. See photo below.
So, I hatched a plan and picked up some red/purple kale, a few beetroot (beets), a red onion and a lemon (all organic). I sliced and shredded the whole bunch and added a handful of sliced garlic cloves as well. The resulting salad is a hot pink to envy and much more attractive on the plate. Hip, hip, hooray!
Cultured Kale & Beetroot Salad
Equipment
- Cutting board & knife
- Cheese grater or food processor
- Large Bowl
- 68oz glass jar with sealing lid
- Fermenting Weight
Ingredients
- 2 bunches red or purple kale organic
- 1 red onion
- 4 small beets/beetroot organic
- 1 lemon organic, sliced
- 1/2 - 1 head garlic handful of cloves, as desired
- 4 tbsp pink salt
- 1 tsp black pepper optional
Instructions
- Sanitize the glass jar, lid and fermenting weight in the oven at 180°F for 5 minutes.
- Wash and thinly slice the kale and set aside into a large bowl.
- Peel and slice the garlic and add to the greens.
- Thinly slice the red onion and add to the greens.
- Shred/grate the beetroot and add to the greens.
- Halve the lemon lengthwise, pick out the seeds and then thinly slice into half rounds and add to the bowl.
- Toss everything together and stuff into the sanitized jar.
- Add 3 1/2 - 4 Tbsp pink salt and cover with non-chlorinated water, leaving 2" at the top.
- Set in the fermenting weight and press the leaves down so they are under the water.
- Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil around the outside of the weight to seal out bacteria.
- Leave for 30 days to ferment.
