Aaaahhh, the sun is glorious right now in Denver! Warmer weather puts me in the mood for salads. I get bored pretty quickly with the standard salad fare. Lucky for me, my friend Cristy, gave me a beautiful cookbook, Pascale Beale’s Salade. This book inspires gorgeous, flavor filled salads with Apples. Pears, Beets, Figs, Mushrooms and more!
It inspired me to make this salad today on this fine warm Sunday! Not only did this book inspire me to mix and match vegetables, flavors and textures…It also has some great recipes for unique vinaigrette, most notably an Avocado Vinaigrette!
This salad takes a few steps but it’s worth each step and when it all comes together you have a crisp kale salad, topped with warm asparagus and shallots and topped with creamy hunks of goat cheese and a slightly tart and cool avocado vinaigrette.
Combine the avocado, vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, water, salt and pepper in a cup of an immersion blender and blend until very smooth. Set aside.
Clean, remove the rib and slice the kale leaves thinly, set aside.
Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat and cook the shallots until tender. Add the asparagus and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the honey and a few tablespoons of water and continue to cook the veggies for about 30 seconds and remove from heat.
Plate half the kale, half the honeyed asparagus and shallots on top of the kale.
Crumble half the goat cheese and add generous dollops of the avocado vinaigrette on top of the salad. Serve immediately.
Strudel and Streusel are two friends living in different cities, sharing a love of baking (and butter) through this blog. With Streusel in Denver, and Strudel in Seattle, we've found our little site to be a great way to stay in touch, share recipes we love, and talk about experiences in our respective cities.
