Kale Avocado Salad, And Searching, Searching

Medically reviewed by Christiana George Updated Date: January 2, 2026

There’s a certain urgency I feel when I’m at the farmer’s market and I’m deciding what I want to buy, and it’s not a good urgency. It’s the urgency caused by a thousand heads of kale peeking out at me from the reusable bags of their well-intentioned shoppers. It’s an urgency that then leads me to examine the many varieties of kale that are on sale, trying to overcome the fact that I find most vegetables utterly repugnant. It’s an urgency that brings out feelings of guilt and anxiety and SHAME, because no self-respecting adult should feel so abhorrent towards plants and their nutritional content.

I guess I have an uneasy relationship with vegetables. Kale, with its gray-green and fibrous leaves, exemplifies everything funny I feel towards them. I want to like it though, and therein lies the problem. I mean, it’s a pretty cool vegetable: its color makes me swoon, its texture reminds me of the skin of a dinosaur, and it’s so damn healthy it hurts. I just can’t get over the taste.

So what else is a person to do in such a situation except brute force it? Try as many kale recipes as possible until she finds one to her liking? That’s what I’ve been trying to do, and this recipe is a step forward in my learning to like it.

It originally caught my eye because of the pairing of kale with avocado. Um, I love avocado. Avocado has the power to correct the taste of anything, just like tomatoes, or soy sauce. Avocado makes me think of California. It also makes me think of Chile, except it’s called palta there and Chileans pile it on hot dogs and it is delicious.

So wouldn’t it make perfect sense that avocado complements kale? In the salad, creamy countered tough… and what a successful experiment in contrasts it was. Along with the citrus-y dressing, this salad mellowed the toughness of the kale with notes of sweet and tart.

It was lovely. I ate the whole thing singlehandedly! Also, if you don’t mind the discoloration of avocado, it tastes better after you’ve left the flavors hang out together for awhile. It was delicious with scrambled eggs for lunch.

I’ll keep searching (a blessing and a curse, never being satisfied with a recipe) but it’s good to know that I’ve got a solid kale recipe in my arsenal.

KALE AVOCADO SALAD

Adapted from Saveur

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1⁄2 cup orange juice
3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic, smashed and chopped into a paste
4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 avocados, halved, pitted, and peeled
2 Tbsp black sesame seeds
1 bunch kale (about 3⁄4 lb.), stemmed and finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Whisk together juices, soy sauce, and garlic in a bowl. Slowly whisk in oil. Set aside.

Cut the avocados into 1⁄2″ cubes. Put cubed avocados, half sesame seeds, and kale into a serving bowl. Toss kale mixture with dressing and season generously with salt and pepper.

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Melty Chai Ice Cream With Honeycomb

Cold Desserts

Christiana George

Updated Date:
June 8, 2023

I am long overdue with a post, yet would you believe me if I told you that nothing I’ve cooked lately has turned out well?

There was a cauliflower gratin that drowned in too much cheese sauce, there was a papaya lassi that in theory sounded great, but in practice turned out bland and nothing, nothing, could fix it. There were blueberry scones that confirmed what I already knew: I don’t like scones. There was carnitas, which actually turned out wonderfully, but since I didn’t take any pictures, it’s like it never happened. Remind me to share it with you some time.

Do you ever have weeks like this? Weeks where all your efforts seem in vain, where you can’t even make a batch of banana bread muffins without botching it somehow? (I forgot to mix the butter in until the very last minute. Oops.) These have been discouraging times.

I’ve finally hit upon a recipe that I like, a lot. It came out tasting the way I imagined, pretty much perfect, and I’m actually excited that there’s quite a bit left over in the fridge. Most importantly, it feels true to me. The only negative is that it’s really melty. But c’mon guys, it’s chai ice cream! And there’s honeycomb in it! Melty or not, it tastes pretty spectacular.

I thought I’d share. I need to share. I’m so tired of keeping all this frustration to myself, and I’m pretty sure you all understand. So with that caveat, plow ahead. I’m sure that with a little bit of tinkering, I’ll get it right. Plus, I think where I went wrong is that I didn’t freeze it long enough before churning it (try to refrigerate the custard overnight if you can).

Here’s the honeycomb. It hardens in the ice cream to about the consistency of cookie dough.

MELTY CHAI ICE CREAM WITH HONEYCOMB

Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups whole milk
1-1/2 cups heavy cream
2 Tbsp loose black tea leaves (such as assam)
3/8 to 1/2 tsp chai masala (recipe below)
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
6 egg yolks
about 1/2 pound honeycomb, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

In a medium saucepan, bring milk and heavy cream to a simmer. Remove from heat. Place an infuser with the loose tea leaves and spices in the milk mixture and steep for about 20 minutes.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar until combined. Slowly add the milk mixture, whisking all the while. Return the mixture to the medium saucepan and turn the heat on to medium-low. Heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture coats the back of the spoon and swiping a finger through leaves a line. Stir in the vanilla and transfer to a container, covered with saran wrap. Store in fridge at least 4 hours, although overnight is optimal.

The next day, churn the ice cream according to your manufacturer’s instructions, adding the honeycomb towards the end. Freeze until the ice cream is at the consistency you like.