Salad mid-winter may seem an odd choice but it’s surprising how many seasonal vegetables around at this time of year are delicious raw. When it comes to green leaves, kale is king due to it’s resilience, diversity of choice and range of body loving nutrients. It’s also pretty easy to grow, as long as you find ways to keep the bugglies off!
My first full year of growing veggies in my new raised beds has been marked by an on-going battle between me and caterpillars. And I’m still not sure who won!
Wishing to grow in tune with nature, I won’t use chemicals to keep predators away. And we need butterflies for cross pollination. Sadly, 80% of butterfly species have decreased in abundance and distribution since the 1970’s. The use of chemicals and natural habitat loss are huge culprits in this decline. At times, though, it felt like the other 20% were munching away in my veg patch 😉
Kale comes in all sorts of colours and shapes. A member of the ever healthy cruciferous family, kale it is packed full of healthful nutrients including calcium, a nutrient that is sometimes lacking in the diet, particularly vegans who don’t eat a lot of vegetables. Important for strong bones and teeth, calcium is also essential for nerve transmission, muscle contractions (including the heart) and blood clotting. The skeleton acts as a huge calcium store for these vital functions; if these stores are not regularly replenished, it’s the bones that suffer first, becoming weaker and more prone to fractures.
The mainstream advice states we need to drink milk for strong bones as it contains high amounts of calcium. Which is does. But only 30% of that calcium is actually available for absorption into the body meaning there’s a lot to go to waste. Plus all the other issues with drinking the milk of another animal like excess growth hormones, antibiotic residue and pus – not to mention the ethical and climate impact of dairy farming on an industrial level.
So for those of us who either choose not to or can’t drink milk (or both in my case), where do we get our calcium from? Well, you may be surprised to read that kale contains more calcium than kale cup for cup with a 43% bioavailability. That is cooked kale; raw contains less but comes with a lovely range of vitamins and minerals including vitamin A, C, E and K plus folate, magnesium, iron and potassium. These all play an important role in the body at cellular level. And of course, being a cruciferous vegetable, kale contains those powerful anti-oxidant and anti-cancer phytonutrients. Which makes eating dark green veggies like kale an important daily encounter.
There’s plenty of different types of kale to buy or grow. My favourite is cavolo nero which has a very dark pigment but you can get all sorts of green, purple and even red options. Supermarkets rarely stock these alternative leaves, focusing more on curly kale and cavolo nero. But our local farm shop grown all sorts all year round and veg delivery companies like Riverford usually offer a nice range too.
If you want to learn more about the different types of kale and how to grow it, there’s a great article on the RHS website you can find here.
This salad contains a lovely mix of colourful ingredients including red onion, pomegranate seeds and of course, the vibrant orange sweet potato. It’s a veritable rainbow on the plate! The vitamin C in the pomegranate seeds and sharp dressing will help you absorb all the lovely nutrients.
To make the most of the nutrients in kale, chop it and leave for 30 minutes to allow time for the enzymes that activate the phytonutrients to do their thing. If you find raw kale a little hard to digest, either lightly steam for a couple of minutes then quickly cool in cold water. Or massage some lemon juice into the leaves.
Like my crunchy festive slaw, this is a great salad to serve during the festive season as it looks fabulous on the table and provides nutrients that supports the immune system as well as lots of fibre the gut microbiome loves, helping you to be happy and healthy during the holidays.
Enjoy!
Roasted sweet potato and kale salad
Ingredients
Method
- Peel the sweet potato and cut into chunks. Pop in a baking tin with a little olive oil (optional) and roast for 20 minutes or so until lightly brown and just soft. Leave to cool.
- Wash the kale well and chop into small pieces.
- Place the lemon juice in the bottom of a bowl. Add the kale and sliced onion. Mix together with your hands and leave to soften for 30 minutes or so.
- Once the sweet potato has cooled and the kale/onion have softened, construct the salad. Pop the sweet potato chunks in with the kale and onion. Add the peppery leaves, chickpeas, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper. Toss the mix to ensure the flavours are distributed.
- Transfer to a serving bowl if you wish. Decorate with the pomegranate seeds on top.
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