I have the blessing of training some AWESOME people – mostly gals.  Most of these gals share my love of food, and have started sharing recipes they have found too.  One of my awesome clients is Danielle Bertiger – a spunky 21 year old Vandy student with a love for life and all things healthy!  She’s started her own blog, Adventures of a Yankee Belle, where she has started sharing some of her fav recipes and gives a great review on a trip to Spain she recently took.  If you’re going to Spain anytime soon – be sure to check it out.  GREAT stuff!  She shared this salad with me that she got from a new cookbook she received for her 21st bday, and I immediately had to make it.  I added and subtracted a few things, so make sure to go check out the original on her site!  I made a HUGE bowl of this so I kind of just threw it all together… I used an entire bag of kale (from Trader Joe’s), an entire carton of Trader Joe’s edamame and a the whole bowl of the veggie mix!  I also added chicken – PROTEIN!!!  She has servings sizes of 1-2, but I made enough for a few peeps.  Even using all the ingredients I did – the dressing was enough for the whole salad, but it was so good, I wished I had made more!!  So, if you’re going to make a big portion of salad – double that dressing!  You won’t regret it.  🙂

Ingredients
serves 1-2 (with lots of dressing)

For the salad:
2-3 cups chopped kale
1-2 cups Trader Joe’s Healthy 8 Chopped Veggie Mix, or sub in your favorite veggies
1/2 cup shelled edamame
1/2 can/cup of mandarin oranges
Handful roasted almonds

For the dressing:
1/4 cup sub soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar
2 tbsp of PB2 (use more of this if you want to make it peanuty-er!)
1-2 tbsp of orange juice touch of freshly grated ginger

Directions
1. Put all dressing ingredients together and blend until smooth
2. Pour some dressing over the kale and massage for a minute or so 3. Mix in the remaining salad ingredients
4. Top with additional dressing, chicken, salmon, crushed seaweed snacks or your choice of toppings!

Here are a few healthy tips Danielle shared as well…
-PB2 is powdered peanut butter, it has 85% less calories and fat since the oil is removed. It is 100% natural with no preservatives or additives, unlike other low cal PB substitutes. And as an added bonus it mixes is in perfectly with sauces and smoothies. If you do choose to use regular PB, make sure to melt it for 15 seconds or so in the microwave.
-I used fresh squeezed orange juice for the dressing.  I mean, I cut an orange and squeezed that sucker in there.  Danielle used Simply Orange Mango for the juice, but feel free to try pineapple or grapefruit!
-Freezing ginger makes it easier to grate and peel.
-Massaging the kale helps infuse the dressing and cut the bitterness. If you normally don’t like kale I suggest you try doing this before you throw in the towel!