Kale Salad with Quinoa, Tangerines and Roasted Almonds

Kale salad with tangerines, quinoa, and almonds.

Something has frozen over. Or maybe pigs are flying. I actually, um, like kale. After all my mocking, my nose crinkling, my eye rolling. After tweeting disparagingly about the taste of this dark leafy green (I believe the word I used was swampy). Behold. I am converted. I have seen the light.

The turning point? Lacinato kale (also called Tuscan black kale, or dinosaur kale). The long, slender leaves are delightfully un-swamp like. And unlike many good-for-you greens, there is little bitterness to harsh your mellow. Lacinato (like its curly kale cousin) does benefit from massage- especially in silky extra virgin olive oil. But then Darling- what doesn't?

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Warm Quinoa + Spinach Salad with Grape Tomatoes

Light and fresh quinoa salad with baby spinach

Here is a wonderful year-round salad that is warm and inviting, fresh and vibrant. The sort of salad a certain individual needs on a damp winter day when the sky is paper white and the clouds are thick with snow. On a day such as this it's tempting to head straight for comfort food. That leftover Kicked Up Baked Mac 'n Cheese in the fridge. That wedge of Roasted Vegetable Kugel. But what the body craves may- or may not be- what the body needs. I'm just saying.

I'm no expert on cravings. But I do know that if I make a habit of indulging every gnawing whim and craving that wiggles its way into my winter-fevered brain I'd have hips to write home about. I'd chew Chocolate Chip Cookie Squares for breakfast and eat warm Horseradish Spiked Red Potato Salad every noon hour from now till the Vernal Equinox (a serotonin-boosting strategy not recommended, by the way, for those of us past a certain age where you can pack on the pounds faster that you can say, Blueberry pancakes on a stick). And by the way, if we are what we eat, and we can "change our life" by what we visualize, does dreaming of Beef and Potatoes au Chocolat make us fat?

Surviving three months of virtual inertia- followed by ten months of slow and steady wins the race recovery- with three honkin' titanium screws in your hip (by the way, not that it invalidates and softens the tedious struggle of last year or anything, but why do certain family members- who claim to be compassionate- insist on referring to these suckers as pins, embroidering knitting group safe visions of a petite and delicate procedure that in no way involved a couple of workbench sized clamps and a battery operated power drill?) not to mention double digit extra poundage adhered to one's backside makes you appreciate a recipe like this.

Trust me.

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