Sunshine Kale Salad

I have a new recipe! It's like a Broccoli Raisin Salad/Kale Salad mash up. It was inspired by a salad we had at a restaurant recently. This is my attempt to recreate it. Dave and I went to Chattanooga several weeks ago for an overnight getaway! (A very rare occurance!) I haven't been there in years. What a great city! We loved it.

We went to Urban Stack, a local, cool, burger place our friends the Joneses recommended. We of course wanted to get a burger and fries, but this Sunshine Kale Salad on the menu looked really good. Dave suggested we split both...which is my favorite.  We got an incredible burger (with bacon, gruyère/ bleu cheese, and an onion compote) and fries.  

The salad was also so good and unique.  I tried to memorize it. I took a picture and when we got home I started looking up dressing recipes and merging a few to create this one.

Sunshine Kale Salad
(4-6 servings)
inspired by Urban Stack in Chattanooga, TN

the dressing (sweet onion vinaigrette)
makes more than enough- but you can save and use on another salad

1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup water (just to lighten in up)
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1/4 cup sugar (or honey or agave nectar)
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1/2 small onion (chopped)

Finely chop onion in the blender.  Add all other ingredients EXCEPT oil.  Blend together until well incorporated and onion fully blended.  While blending, slowly add in oil until all well blended.

the salad
4 cups fresh broccoli -finely chopped
4 to 6 stalks of Kale washed, removed from the stalk and coarsely torn
3/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup sweetened flake coconut
1 mango- chopped
1/2 cup (or more) crumbled feta

Grilled chicken, optional (see HERE or HERE for recipes/instructions for that)

Prep salad ingredients (washing, chopping, etc.) Add diced chicken if including it.
Drizzle some of the dressing on top.  Toss it in and add more dressing as needed to reach desired taste.
You can make it ahead of time or serve immediately.  If serving it later, you might want to stir, taste, and add a touch more dressing before serving. Tweak as you wish- add, delete or alter portions to your liking.

Summer is upon us! Summer feels like salad season to me! I love to have salad as a main dish for dinner and my favorite lunches are prepared salads that can be made and kept in the refrigerator to be pulled out at lunchtime.  It's also Summer Reading time and I have made my annual Summer Reading Stack.  It's a little too ambitious- and some are from last year that I never read, or at best never finished, and there are many more that have been added to the stack.  In fact, I keep adding more books to the stack.  It's about to topple over.  If you are interested in meeting to talk about any of these books (if you too have read them or want to read them), let me know!