I really liked this salad! I ended up making it with mature black kale, but I think it would've been even better with baby kale. That said, the mature kale was fine, just make sure you get enough of it. You may need more than one bunch depending on how big your bunches/packages are.

You can make this salad with romaine lettuce if you want. Personally I think it's better with kale though. I also think it'd be nice with a handful of toasted chopped pecans added. I don't think it needs the nuts, but they'd definitely be nice.

Apologies for the terribly presentation and badly lit photo; I was in a hurry.

Pan-Roasted Pear Salad

Adapted from Cook's Country October/November 2018

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. lard¹
• 200g bacon-flavoured tempeh
• 3 slightly underripe Bosc pears, quartered and cored
• 2 tsp. sugar
• ~1/2 c. vinaigrette²
• 3 Tbsp. maple syrup
• ~350g kale³
• 1/4 c. fresh chives, chopped
• ~1 c. crumbled blue cheese
• 1/4 c. chopped pecans, toasted

Directions

1. Melt lard over medium heat.
2. Add tempeh and cook until well-browned.
3. Remove tempeh from pan and set aside.
4. Toss pears with sugar.
5. Add pears to pan and cook, cut-side down, until well-browned (2-4 minutes). Flip to brown the other cut side (another 2-4 minutes).
6. Remove from heat and set aside.
7. Toss kale with vinaigrette and maple syrup.
8. Add tempeh, pears, chives, and blue cheese and serve.

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Variations

Dressing Recipe

Ingredients

• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
• 3 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients and whisk vigorously.
2. Omit maple syrup listed in main salad recipe as it will be incorporated into the dressing.

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¹ I used lard because I had some on hand and I figured why not make the tempeh extra bacon-y? If you don't have any lard lying around or you'd like to keep things vegetarian, feel free to substitute an oil of your choice. I'd probably roll with coconut or corn oil, but it doesn't really need to be anything specific. ^Back
2 The original recipe comes with instructions for making the dressing from scratch. We already had a bottle of homemade vinaigrette in the fridge, so I just used some of that. The original was pretty similar except that it used apple cider vinegar for the acid component whereas we'd used a mix of lemon juice and red wine vinegar. It also included a bit of maple syrup, so I just added the same amount of maple syrup after the fact. I think it worked out quite well. ^Back
3 If you end up using baby kale, you can probably reduce the vinaigrette and maple syrup slightly. (Maybe cut it back to 6 Tbsp. and 2 Tbsp. respectively.) ^Back