Pesto Kale Salad

Pesto pasta salad is one of my favorite summer treats. Kale is one of the staples of my diet. On Saturday, my favorite summer treat informed one of my dietary staples, almost entirely by accident. I went to the Mt. Pleasant Farmer's market on Saturday morning, where some of the most awesome summer produce (I.e., peaches, basil, melons, tomatoes) was in full swing.  I also picked up some curly kale.  

Then I proceeded to have a kind of lazy Saturday.

When dinner rolled around, I was tempted to stay with the lazy Saturday theme and order in, but decided to tap into kitchen intuition instead.  I started with a marinated kale salad base, added a nutritional yeast and walnut based pesto, sprinkled on some tomatoes, and a truly fantastic meal of a salad resulted. Take advantage of the in-season basil right now, and make this salad. 

Pesto Kale Salad

1 large bunch of kale

2 T olive oil

Juice of one lemon

Sea salt to taste

1/4 cup of nutritional yeast

1 handful of walnuts

1 large fistful of fresh basil

Garlic to taste

Heirloom tomatoes, chopped

Rip the kale off the stems into small pieces. Massage kale with olive oil and sea salt. Set aside.  Put remaining ingredients, save the tomatoes, into a mini-food processor and process until pesto-like.  Put the sauce, which might have the texture of a nut pate depending on how many walnuts you use, on top of the kale salad along with the chopped tomatoes. Try to savor instead of inhale.

(Oh, and the brown liquid isn't scotch whiskey. It's home brewed kombucha, which I will post about later, I promise!)