I love Farmer’s Markets!!  Yup, that’s right.  Regardless of how much food I have at home, whether I was planning it or not, I always come home with at least 2 bags of beautiful, gorgeous, colourful produce.  I love the suprise of getting there and not knowing what hidden gems you are going to find.  Sometimes you find massive squash, beautiful berries, gorgeous lettuce, king size kale or an epic napa cabbage.  I love walking around and taking in all that freshness and all of those colours.  I find it so inspiring and I pull so much creativity from these moments.

I also love bringing the lion.  It’s a really great way to teach him about fruits and vegetables…when he actually feels like listening to it.  Often times, farmers are great at sharing little samples with the lil guy and it’s so fun to watch his reaction.  I remember this summer visiting the Courtenay Farmers Market on Vancouver Island and watching that lion try a sour plum was priceless because he yelled at the top of his lungs ‘Blech, Sour mom’ and then he threw it on the ground.  Yikes.  You can’t please them all eh?

Today I was strolling around the lonsdale quay before heading to an appointment and was so happy to see that   Cropthorne Organic Farm and their beautiful bounty of gorgeous veggies!!  The colours were awesome and I think the gals that run the stall are lovely and really take pride in their work.  I had all intentions of just going to my appointment but I got sucked in to the vortex of veggies and ended up buying a few things.

Look at these gorgeous winter squash and check out the size of these shallots???!!  AMAZING

winter squash and shallots from Cropthorne Organic Farm

Check out these beauty beets!! OMG.  I might have to make a tangled thai salad with those golden beets.

Turn up the BEETS!!

I ended up buying some butternut squash, some kale, rainbow carrots and some golden beets.  When I got home later that day, I decided to make a lovely fall farmers market kale salad as a beautiful side to our dinner.  Honestly though, you could make this as a meal!!

I cheerfully strolled through lower lonsdale and was happy to bring my 2 bags of produce with me to my hair appointment. I mean, who doesn’t want to show off their new veggies alongside their new hair do??  I decided to take the plunge and get some bangs…eek, this means i might have to start blowdrying my hair but hey, i’m up for the challenge.

Here’s a pic of the bangs. They will never look as good as this again so I thought I would capture the moment.

All I used was Kale, washed thoroughly and chopped real fine.  Kale can be quite bitter so I always like to cut it rather small and fine for a salad.  I decided to keep this salad super simple and rustic and use only red onion sliced fine, a purple carrot and a bartlett pear.  For the carrot and pear, I decided to use my mandolin slicer as I wanted to get nice uniform match sticks.

Simple Ingredients

I am going to dress this with my celery seed dressing because it suits these fall flavours perfectly.  A while back someone told me when making a salad using kale, you should always massage the kale with the dressing and your kale will be less bitter.  At first I was like…all right, you need to COOL it.  There is no way in hell I am massaging a salad…what does that even mean??  Seriously…sometimes I don’t know if this stuff is legit or if its just one of those annoying uber health nut vancouverisms??  Well I had nothing to lose in this situation…(other than a bit of my pride) and I tried it.  I got all namaste with my kale and I have to say…RESULT.  It actually worked and the kale wasn’t as bitter.  I have no idea if this is the placebo effect but it worked.  I swear this is not a vicious ploy of me kicking back laughing at all of you massaging your kale…I promise it’s not!!

Dressing the salad

Fall Farmer’s Market Kale Salad

It was a tasty salad and I think this would be a great lunch salad for work on weekdays because it will hold up in any lunch kit!!

I don’t think i’m really going to do a recipe here because I explained it all.  If you want the recipe for the dressing, check out my earlier post Mood: Independent-Celery Seed Dressing

Happy Salad Making Fine People!!