Winter Salad with Kale, Squash, Apples, & Fennel

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Merry Christmas Eve! Happy Holidays! Happy whenever you find yourself doing today! For me, it's "Happy Another-Excuse-To-Plan-A-Menu Day"! 

If you are looking to build a holiday menu that everyone can enjoy, regardless of dietary preferences, you know my struggle well: what is paleo, vegan, and still filling? Salad is the easy answer. But it's so hard to make salad feel "right" in the middle of winter. Tomatoes? Hard and flavorless. Cucumbers? Chilling. Butterhead lettuce, arugula, even baby spinach--just plain out of place. It's easier to pass by with gratins, mashes, and roasts. And don't get me wrong--I love anything au gratin (especially this cauliflower gruyere gratin!) - but sometimes it's nice to have a light dish on your holiday table, to balance out all of the traditional winter fare.

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That very question brought me to this salad. (Now, before you say, "Salad is NOT filling," hear me out). This salad, with massaged dino kale, is stuffed with wintery goods that will fill you up: roasted delicata squash, toasted pepitas, and fennel, and crispy apples. Avocado for good measure — because what salad isn’t better with avocado? It has crunch, a touch of sweetness, and a savory kick. And it fits right in on a crowded table of wintertime foods. And if you're still not content, I recommend adding some shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. 

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Drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette, this salad breaks away from the heavy dishes we all know so well, with out feeling out of place. It's a piece of fresh in the midst of winter--often a much needed twist. Since this salad is made with hearty vegetables, it can be made several hours ahead of time, making your holiday meal less stressful! Just wait until the last minute to add the dressing. 

What new dish will you be trying this holiday season? How do you make sure everyone is jolly when they take their seat at the holiday table? 

P.S., that delicate looking garnish is a fennel frond — the top "leafy bit of the fennel bulb. Save a tiny bit when you’re chopping up the fennel, and put it on top for good looks. 😎

Winter Salad with Kale, Squash, Apples, & Fennel

Published December 24, 2014 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 8   |    Active Time: 35 minutes

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Ingredients:

1 delicata squash, seeds removed and sliced

1 tablespoon avocado oil

6 cups kale, chopped into bit-sized pieces

Dash salt

Drizzle extra virgin olive oil

3/4 cup fennel, sliced thin

1 apple, cut into matchsticks

1/2 cup roasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

1 avocado, sliced or cubed

Balsamic vinaigrette  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Toss the sliced squash in the avocado oil. Spread it out on a cookie sheet, and place in oven. Bake until golden, soft all the way through, and browning on edges. Remove from oven and set aside. 
2. Assemble salad: Place the chopped kale in a salad bowl, along with a drizzle of olive oil and a dash of salt. Using your hands, rub the olive oil into the leaves until they are bright green. This softens them a bit, making them nicer to eat and easier to digest.
3. Add the fennel and apple to the salad bowl. Top with roasted squash, avocado, and pepitas. Serve with balsamic vinaigrette to taste. Optional: garnish with fennel fronds.

Paleo Cinnamon Coconut Crumble Coffee Cake

Update 1/12/2017: I have been playing with photography more, and wanted to reshoot the images for this recipe. The images here are new, the recipe is the same!

Mmm... can you smell that? Wafts of warm cinnamon? Melodies of toasting coconut? Hints of vanilla? That's what leisure smells like. At 7am it smells dreamy, like you're not quite awake yet. This is what our house smelled like this week, letting everyone know it's official: winter break is here! 

On the last day of school, my usual mid-semester stress was already beginning to lift, and with no cramming left to do, I spent my morning making cake. This coffee cake, a Paleo makeover of one of my grandmother's recipes, has a soft crumb and is lightly sweet.

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My grandmother's secret ingredient in coffee cake was sour cream, but I wanted to keep this recipe paleo-friendly, so I used bananas, which add a similar amount of moisture, and keeps it dairy-free. The banana flavor is subtle, and after a bite or two it's lost between the cinnamon and coconut, but that fruit provides a gentle sweetness that is the perfect match to a cup of chai. Hooray for natural sweetness! Really have a sweet tooth? The cakey part of this coffee cake is only subtly sweet, but you can add 2 tablespoons of honey if you’re sweet tooth is begging for it.

Another twist that my grandmother’s recipe didn’t call for — coconut on top. Most crumbs call for just a few ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon. Sometimes oats. But, since none of those ingredients (aside from the cinnamon and maybe the butter, depending on your definition) are Paleo, I improvised. Toasted coconut adds the “crunch” I was looking for with out adding grains or flour. GF, DF (though you can use butter over coconut oil if you prefer), and NF (nut-free, for anyone that needs it!).

Now who has the coffee??

Paleo Cinnamon Coconut Crumble Coffee Cake

Published December 12, 2014 by Caitlin Sherwood

Yields: 8   |    Active Time: 60 minutes

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Ingredients:

4 eggs

2/3 cup canned full fat coconut milk 

2 ripe bananas, peeled and roughly chopped

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the Crumble Topping:

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2/3 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut 

4 tablespoon coconut oil or butter, melted

4 tablespoon honey, melted or coconut sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease a 9-inch by 9-inch glass baking dish or cake pan.
2. Whisk together in coconut flour, baking soda, and salt, getting rid of any chunks of coconut flour as you do. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas well. Add the eggs, and vanilla to the bank mixture, folding together until incorporated. Slowly fold the dry ingredients into the wet, stirring until a smooth batter forms. **If you own a blender,  you can skip the mashing and stirring and throw all of the batter ingredients in (eggs, banana, coconut flour, coconut milk, salt, baking soda and vanilla) and blend until smooth. 
3. Spread the batter into the greased baking dish or cake pan.
4. In a small bowl, combine melted coconut oil, honey, cinnamon and coconut. Stir with a fork until a loose crumb forms. Use your fingers to sprinkle the crumble evenly over the top of the cake batter. 
5. Bake the cake for 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown on top and a tooth pick comes out clean when inserted into the middle. Set on a wire wrack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature with your normal breakfast beverage. 

Baking Season Essentials: Paleo Pie Crust

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It's December. Yup, just like that--December. Most of the time I get to a new month and think "Wow, I can't believe it's ______ already!" but this month, I'm ready. Bring on the winter wonderland. I'll just cuddle up in this little house baking all weekend. 

First up: pie! Pie is an essential to any bakers repertoire, no matter how you slice it (ha!). Making the perfect pie crust is the bane of many baker's kitchen life, and making a pie crust that's also paleo is even rougher. I can still hear my dad scoffing as I pull out a food processor to make pie crust. "The butter gets all warm!" he would say, pulling out the pastry cutter and a chilled bowl. Hmph. 

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Well, paleo bakers, I'm here to say: "Rejoice! The food processor is in!" and this crust will go from start to finish in 20 minutes flat. It comes out of a pie dish beautifully and while you might not expect a nut-based crust to stick together, this one holds solid. You could eat a slice of this buttery crust sans-plate, if you were really desperate.  

Wondering what to make with this crust? 

• Paleo Peach Gingered Pie 

• Gluten-Free Chocolate Pecan Pie

• Homey Grain-Free Apple Pie

Almond Flour Pie Crust

Paleo, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free    |   Caitlin Sherwood    

A simple, easy pie crust for any type of pie.

Serves: N/A    |    Total Active Time: 25 minutes

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Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups almond flour
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• pinch salt
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, cold + more for greasing the pie pan
• 1 egg

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. In your food processor, pulse the almond flour, coconut flour and salt together until well distributed and no coconut flour clumps remain. (Do not over-process, it will turn into nut butter!)
2. Add the coconut oil and egg. Pulse the food processor for several more minutes, until all of the oil and egg are incorporated and the dough turns into a loose crumb (depending on the temperature of your kitchen, it may also form a ball).
3. Grease a 9-inch pie pan with coconut oil. Press the dough into the pan, to form a 1/8 inch thin layer, working the dough up the sides of the pan. (Tip: use a smooth water glass or jar to roll out the dough in the bottom of the pan. Use your fingers to shape the scallops around the edge of the pie). Tip: alternatively, roll the dough out between 2 pieces of parchement paper until it's a 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch thick. Place in fridge for 5 minutes. Then, peel off top piece of parchment and transfer dough into pie pan, fitting to pan. For top crust, repeat the same process but shape top crust as desired after removing from fridge (cut strips for lattice, use a cookie cutter, etc).
4. Place the crust in the middle wrack of your oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until just golden.