Monday, August 1, 2011

Whole Wheat Noodles with Bleu Cheese, Walnuts & Kale


This salad has some intense flavors; blue cheese, toasted walnuts and kale.  I made my recipe with whole wheat spaghetti noodles, but any pasta shape should work. It's hard to say that this will appeal to everyone because I have noticed you either love, or hate, blue cheese and not everyone loves walnuts and kale either...  

Then there are the noodle haters... my husband said "it was too noodley...".  
Oh well, you know, you can't please all the people all the time!

My kids and I all liked this salad, it was very satisfying and had all the intense flavors that we love, plus, it could be a vegetarian main dish all on it's own, as it is quite filling. But, I have been thinking about it, and I do agree that you could double the amount of kale in this recipe, and maybe it wouldn't be so noodley...

One more thing, this salad is best made and served in the same day.  The kale is nice and bright green on the first day, but I've got to admit it gets to be a disagreeable color on Day Two.



Serves about 8-12
Ingredients:
1 lb. whole wheat noodles
4-6 oz crumbled blue cheese
1 1/2 cups toasted walnuts
1 large kale, stems removed and chopped small
1/2 red onion, diced

Dressing:
red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Boil the noodles until almost cooked with about 1 minute to go, add the chopped kale to briefly cook.


Mix all the ingredients together for the dressing in a blender, adding 1/4 cup toasted walnuts and 2 Tbsp blue cheese to the dressing, and blend until smooth.  Add dressing to noodles and toss to coat.  Add the rest of the blue cheese, red onions and toasted walnuts.  Add salt and pepper as needed.


Here's a couple other kale recipes that you might like:
Kale, Cherry & Almond Salad
Sausage, Mushroom and Kale Lasagna
Pork Tenderloin with Cheese Polenta & Sauteed Kale
Portuguese Linguica Sausage, Bean and Kale Stew

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