Kale Salad with Spicy Tahini Sauce

Bored of lettuce salads with oil-and-vinegar dressings? Well this is not your typical salad! We usually think of kale, collards and chard as "cooked greens" but they make a wonderful crunchy salad *uncooked* with a creamy, flavorful dressing.

Ingredients:

Use a large bunch of any greens you have available for this salad. You can also add just about anything else to this salad – tender spring squash are especially good for eating raw. Add thinly sliced carrots or zucchini, green onions, green or red peppers—whatever is on hand.

Salad:
1 large bunch kale or mixed greens (collards, chard – whatever whatever is available)
1 cup additional vegetables as available – mix it up! Carrots, zucchini or summer squash, sweet peppers, etc.

Sauce:
2 oz. coconut milk (small 6 oz. cans can be found with Asian foods in most supermarkets)
2 Tbsp white miso (can be found in refrigerated produce-section of most supermarkets. If using darker miso, use slightly less and add small amount of sweetener like maple syrup.)
1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)
2 cloves garlic, crushed using garlic press or finely chopped
1/4 cup tahini (sesame nut butter – can be found in health food aisle of most supermarkets)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup water (or as needed to make dressing fluid)
1/4 jalapeno, finely chopped (optional for some serious zing)v

Directions:

Wash greens and slice length-wise once or twice, then cut into 1/2″ strips (discard any thick stem bottoms with no leaf.)
Wash and thinly slice (squash, green onions), dice (peppers) or shred (carrots or squash) other vegetables.
Place veggies in large bowl.
Put all dressing ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. (This can be done by hand using a whisk or fork if you hate washing the blender, it just takes a little more effort – make sure the miso is fully blended in and not in ps.)
Adjust dressing seasoning to taste. Pour dressing onto veggies and “massage” into the kale (yes, with your clean hands!) softening the greens slightly and making sure the other veggies are mixed in.
Serve at room temperature.