Summer salads!  We currently have a mere two rows of rocket arugula, each maybe three-feel long, planted in one of our gardens, and even though I’ve instructed all the neighbors to help themselves, we’re overrun with arugula.  If you don’t harvest it, it will bolt (produce flowers and seeds) according to Evolution’s imperative, and then you’re out of luck stuck with flowering plants sporting dinky, anemic leaves.  The solution, obviously, is endless salads.

We also happen to be in peach season and kale season, and thus we give you:   Lemon Kale & Chili Chickpea Salad and Caramelized Peach & Mint Arugula Salad.  These are awesome salads because they are hearty but not heavy, and they keep well in the fridge.

Lemon Kale &…

• 1 bunch of kale
• 1.5 cups of cooked farfalline pasta (farfalle will also work)
• 1 can chickpeas
• juice of 2 lemons
• 8 cloves of crushed garlic
• olive oil, salt and black pepper to taste, chili pepper, a pinch of dried basil and dried oregano

Drain but don’t wash the chickpeas, spread in a baking pan, drizzle with a few tables spoons of olive oil, and cover with a bit of salt and lots of chili powder.  Stir and roast at 450 degrees until the beans shrink and go a dark brown.  This is how you know they’ve gone crispy.  It’ll probably take 45 minutes.  Chop the kale into fine strips and then bruise with salt.  Bruising (also known as massaging) breaks own the cell walls of the greens, making them more tender and better at taking on the flavor of your dressing.  You can do it by sprinkling the cut strips with salt and rubbing the salt into the leaves with the flat side of your knife.  When everything is cooked, mix together and chill while you combine the other ingredients into the dressing.  Toss the salad with the dressing and continue to chill.  This is even better the next day.

Caramelized Peach &…

• 1 bunch of arugula
• 1 bunch of different kind of lettuce
• 2 peaches
• 1 cup quinoa
• mint from at least 3 large sprigs
• butter, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, salt & pepper

Cut the peaches in half, remove the pits, and brush them with olive oil.  Press a few tiny slivers of butter onto the exposed flesh and broil until they start to caramelize at the edges.  You’ll be able to tell because the edges will turn a dark brown and the fruit will start to shrink.  Let the peaches cool and then cut into chunks.  Cook the quinoa and let that cool as well.  Mix with with the lettuces and the mint, finely chopped, then top off with a dressing of olive oil, a few cap-fulls of the vinegar, a dash of salt, and tons of fresh ground pepper.