FOOD | Baby kale & bacon salad

Happy new year everyone! Hope you celebrated it in style like me - unpacking your life from hundreds of boxes, then collapsing on bed at 9pm & waking up on New Year's Day at 10am confused not only about the year but also the place you're at (has that ever happened to you that you woke up in a new house thinking you're still in your old flat and gettin' pretty much lost on the way to the loo, oh dear). Story of my life, ay. Because of the whole moving house shebang I didn't have time to create a list of 83795432 new year's resolutions this year - my sole aim of the end of 2014 was to survive the big move (only down the road, but man, it takes it out of you!). Come New Year's Day I did have a little think about my life and its pitfalls, as you do on this 'new year new start' day filled with self-doubt & self-criticism, and I came up with one sole resolution for 2015 - I want to improve. Instead of ticking a list of little yet very specific resolutions which would frustrate the dear life out of me, I will attempt to grab opportunities as they come and make the most out of them. Easy hey! Let's start with some improvement on the front of eating habits!

Our new kitchen is pretty swanky, if I say so. It's not super modern and the kitchen cabinets could do with a lick of paint and new handles, but it's got a lot of working and storage space. YEAH, LET'S MAKE FOOD! In the name of fresh start and healthiness, I've made up my own little Baby kale & bacon Salad recipe.

What do you need?
✓ a bag of baby kale
✓ a bag of lamb lettuce and ruby chard
✓ Pecorino cheese
✓ black pepper
✓ bacon cubes
✓ avocado
✓ cayenne pepper
✓ olive oil

This recipe is so simple - you fry the bacon cubes with a little bit of black pepper and cayenne pepper, and mix with kale, lamb lettuce, ruby chard and avocado. Add some cheese and olive oil on top. NOMZ! I honestly don't know what I used to eat before I found kale?! It's such a flavourful green! The only green that can beat it is baby kale - you have to try it! It's quite a task to get hold of it (perhaps because it's such an on trend ingredient), but it's definitely worth it. And just a little tip for ya - I find it really hard to source nice fresh greens for salads (I really dislike farmer markets around where I live and Asda's own brand of salads is a bit... meh!) but Florette Salads make the best kale, baby kale and lamb lettuce!

Let me know in the comments below whether you've tried to make this salad!
Next challenge will be making use of le garden. So far I've collected a handful of sachets with seeds - one of them being catnip! Did you actually know that you can grow your own catnip and your cats can sniff it in the garden, and once the season's gone you can dry it and stuff cat toys with it! Hashtag get your cat high, haha!