Kale and Couscous Salad

The husband strikes again!

I have the joy of being married to a man who can Houdini things out of my kitchen that I didn't know where possible from what I had in my pantry. He called me a few days ago when I was roaming around Trader Joe's and asked me to pick up a few random items for this salad he had in his head (which is something as he's not much one for leafy greens in the first place).

I don't have a big fancy camera that makes everything look delicious and super high def so you just have to deal with the good ol' iPhone pics. I'm not the deceptive Pinterest picture taker when you make something and it makes you feel like this:

What you see is pretty much what you're gonna get from us! 

Kale & Couscous Salad

Ingredients: 

Kale - I used prepackaged, pre-shredded it eliminates a step 

1 pkg Pearl Couscous

Olive Oil

1/2 large Yellow Onion

1 clove of Garlic

1/2 C sliced Green Olives

1/3 C Parmesan Cheese 

1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 tsp Cavender's Seasoning

Balsamic Vinegar to taste

Salt & Pepper to taste

Make couscous as package directs. Get this going as it's the longest step. Wash and dry your Kale, we used a 2 qt bowl as our "measurement" though it's really up to your taste and liberally pour balsamic vinegar over dried Kale. In a skilled heat about 4-5 TBS of olive oil and lightly brown your onion and garlic, at the very end add your red pepper flakes and stir them in well, this will take out some of the heat as well as infusing the flavor into the rest of the olive oil (this is part of your dressing). Once aromatic immediately pour hot olive oil/onion mid over Kale, this will wilt the Kale slightly (this is what you want). Once the couscous is cooked completely and all the water is evaporated mix in couscous, olives and Parmesan. After those are well mixed in the dressing add salt, pepper and Cavender's (the Cavender's is a personal thing, this just adds a bit of a lemon flavor, you could add lemon juice if you prefer.)  It's the simple and delicious! It's great warm and is still great chilled the next day! This will be repeated in our house! 

The Beginning or Somewhere in the Middle

I never know where is appropriate to begin with your first blog post. The truth is that no one really starts reading these until you've been posting for some time, by that point this post gets lost and it doesn't really matter if you know that I'm a currently unemployed fiction writer, knitter, designer or anything else. It doesn't matter that I grew up for the entirety of my 30 something years in the south and moved to the beautiful breadbasket of Northern California wine country chasing my husbands job and a dream of free living (the soul, clearly not the pocketbook). You haven't read that I believe in the beauty of well designed body art, that I love really great fresh foods, that I'm a lover and re-seller of beautiful vintage items and that after 10 years of marriage we are having our first child in the fall.

None of that matters so I'll just jump right in ;).