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Mendo Lake Family Life

Get Your Greens

By Cynthia Lair

All hearty, dark greens work well in this recipe. If you choose curly-leaf kale, as opposed to lacinato, you may want to massage it a bit more than the directions say because it has tougher leaves. For a truly vegetarian salad, choose vegan Worcestershire sauce (no anchovies in the ingredients).

Winter Greens Vegetarian Caesar

Hands-on time:
15 minutes

Makes 2/3 cup dressing, 4 to 6 servings of salad


For the dressing
1⁄4 cup mayonnaise or aioli
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1⁄2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil

For the salad
8 ounces Swiss chard, stems removed, torn into bite-size pieces
5 ounces kale, stems removed, torn into bite-size pieces
1⁄2 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 ounces baby arugula
1⁄2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1 hard-cooked egg, sliced
Freshly ground black pepper

Instuctions
In a blender, add the mayonnaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, vinegar, mustard, and sugar. Blend until smooth. Turn the blender on low and slowly add the olive oil to emulsify. Taste, and adjust the sugar, salt (which comes from the Worcestershire sauce), and acid (lemon juice or vinegar) to your liking.

In a large bowl, add the chard, kale, and salt. Using your hands, massage the chard and kale with the salt for 2 minutes, until the leaves begin to soften. Add the arugula and cheese, and toss.

Add the dressing to the greens just before serving. Toss well, garnish with the egg slices and black pepper, and serve.

(c)2019 By Cynthia Lair. All rights reserved. Excerpted from Sourdough on the Rise by permission of Sasquatch Books.

Cynthia Lair is a faculty member at Bastyr University’s Department of Nutrition and Exercise Science and is the founder of their Nutrition and Culinary Arts program. She is the author of
Feeding the Young Athlete: Sports Nutrition Made Easy for Players, Parents and Coaches (Readers to Eaters, 2017), Feeding the Whole Family: Recipes for Babies, Young Children, and Their Parents (Sasquatch Books, 2008), and Sourdough on the Rise: How to Confidently Make Whole Grain Sourdough Breads at Home (Sasquatch Books, 2019).