Purple Kale Salad

What You Need:
1 bunch purple kale, clean and torn into bite sized pieces
1 large cucumber, peeled, and halved
1 lemon
2 avocados, peeled
Handful baby carrots, chopped
Salt
Pepper
Red pepper flakes

For the salad:
Place kale in a large bowl with carrots. Chop half the cucumber and one of the avocados and throw them in the bowl too. I put the avocado into a ziplock bag and toss with the juice from half a lemon once it is sliced. Get it coated evenly to keep the avocado from turning brown.

For the dressing:
Put one avocado, half the cucumber, the pulp and juice from half the lemon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes into blender. Blend until thin and creamy.

I think a handful of cashews would go well in this salad.

Green Beans

These beans came out of the garden this morning, and made a great simple side dish.  We had so many we at a big plate each for dinner, and I wanted more.  Will definitely plant them again.

We just washed them and threw them in the crock pot for a couple hours with a cup of chicken broth, a tablespoon of olive oil, a tablespoon of minced garlic, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.

Grilled Eggplant Sandwich With Gruyere and Arugula

What you need:
1 loaf french bread, sliced into half inch slices and drizzled lightly with olive oil
1 handful fresh arugula
1 block hickory smoked gruyere cheese, thinly sliced
severa tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1tbsp salt
1 medium eggplant, sliced into quarter inch slices
balsamic vinegar

What to do:
First you need to brine the eggplant for half an hour.  To do this, stir one tbsp salt into a quarter cup hot water.  Then add the salt water with two quarts cool water in a large bowl.  Add the sliced eggplant to the bowl and use a heavy bowl to keep it submerged.  After half an hour, take the eggplant out and dry it off with a paper towel.  Put the dry eggplant in a dry bowl and add one tbsp balsamic vinegar and two tbsp olive oil.  Heat grill to 500.  Cook eggplant on grill for 4 or 5 minutes until good grill marks are visible.  Then flip the eggplant and toss the bread on the grill.  Cook another 3 to 4 minutes.  Remove from grill, assemble sandwiches.