Quick Pickled Kale Salad

This is a great time of year to purchase fresh kale from the Farmer's Market.  I love greens and the hearty taste is brings to dishes.  This salad is something that can be whipped up fast but if you want your onions, cucumbers and kale to be slightly less raw, you will want to let them soak up the vinegar for an hour.  I let the onions and cucumbers pickle overnight and they were too pickled but still tasted okay.  If you still want them to have a bite, pickle for a shorter amount of time.  Also, I didn't let the pickling liquid settle onto the kale and I think it may taste better if the kale soaks up the pickling liquid for at least an hour as well.  Cooking is also a guessing game when you are trying out new recipes and I am always learning new techniques.

A half cup of kale fulfills your daily need for Vitamin A.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup organic cane sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 large organic cucumber, thinly sliced
• 1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
• 4 cups thinly sliced kale
• 1 1/4 cups chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 TB extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
• Black pepper

Combine vinegar, water and sugar in a bowl.  Shake vigorously.  

Drop in cucumbers and onions; set aside and let pickle.  

Toss kale with chickpeas, 1/3 cup of the pickling liquid, oil, salt and pepper.  

Divide salad among four bowls (or two in my case)  

Add 2 hard-boiled egg quarters to each bowl before serving

**I would like to extend a special thanks to my wonderful photographer, Matthew Mason.  Without him, this post wouldn't have been so colorful.  And a second thanks to my new Iphone 4s which makes blogging much easier.

Adapted from SELF magazine.