Beautiful Kale Salad (for Thanksgiving)

I had the best kale salad a few months ago at Beauty & Essex, and I wondered if I could recreate it. The kale in the salad seemed so, so, so tender and mild, that I wondered if it was a young kale marketed specially to restaurants.

But it turns out the salad is remarkably easy to recreate, and it uses just standard kale found in the average grocery store.

Beautiful Kale Salad
Inspired by a salad served at Beauty & Essex.

1 large head of organic kale (flat leafed or purple)

1 large organic granny smith apple
3-4 slices of free-range thick-sliced bacon, cooked, chopped
1/3-1/2 cup of chopped honey-roasted nuts (preferably walnut or pecan)
1 lemon
a few tablespoons of organic, cold-pressed olive oil
some crumbled ricotta salata
salt and pepper

1) Cook the bacon so that it is crispy but not too crispy.
2) After washing and drying the apples and kale, cut the spines from the kale. Roll the kale leaves gently, then cut into thinner slices. Cut the apple into matchstick french fry sized pieces.
3) Toss the kale, apple, bacon, and chopped nuts together with the juice of 1 lemon and the olive oil.
4) Add salt and pepper if you like.
5) Top with crumbled ricotta salata.

Here is a picture of the Kale & Apple salad served from Beauty & Essex. The photo comes from an article by the NYPost.