I heard the stories for years about once you have teenagers you go back to the babysitting stage and I did not believe my friends.  Well…. it’s true!  We have two teenage boys and one boy that is 11 and thinks he is 15 so it makes it very hard to leave them on a weekend night without worrying about what they are getting into.  

My husband and I have worked very hard to make our house the “fun” house with a pool, basketball, big tvs, xbox, ping pong, food, drinks…. and we love that our kids want to be at our home with their friends on the weekends-It makes it much easier to keep an eye on them, but it really sucks for us!  My husband and I have gone out every Saturday night for a “date night” since our first son was born.  We always felt that we needed a night away to be adults.  When the boys were babies and we had our standing Saturday night sitter there were many times we would go to dinner and then Barnes and Noble to walk around until we knew that the boys were asleep:)  It was just heavenly to have a night off from the bedtime routine, but we were too tired to go “party”. Having three boys in four years was probably not smart, but oh well.  We survived and we will survive the teenage years as well-I pray!
So since we don’t trust our teenage boys AT ALL to make wise choices we are more often than not stuck at home “babysitting”.  Which means that we are downstairs watching tv, opening the front door for the cute teens to come hang out upstairs.  Our house sounds like a European night club (I am not sure why that horrendous music has come back in style).
Every weekend we think our kids may go hang out at someone else house and we might have a night off so we hold to the fabulous idea of a nice dinner out, but it is quickly shot down by a phone call to come pick someone up or “can we come hang at home?” Because I hope we can go out I rarely have food to cook in the house on the weekends which means that we order out. Which means fattening, salty, tasteless dinners:( So, once Sunday night arrives I am craving something healthy and delicious!  That normally means a salad.  
This salad is my take on a popular salad served at a local restaurant.  They add shredded chicken to it, but for this recipe I went full vegetarian.  With any salad, or recipe for that matter, add or take away what you like or don’t like.  As everyone knows I am not a huge kale fan, but every now and then it a nice change, but if you just hate kale then substitute in spinach or romaine or cabbage.

 

Kale and Apple Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

Makes about 6 servings

1 bag (16oz) washed and cut kale
1 apple, sliced thinly into half moons
1/2 cup whole almonds (roughly chopped)
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
2 Tablespoons whole grain mustard
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar 
3-4 Tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt and pepper


In a small bowl, or lidded jar, combine mustard, vinegar olive oil and salt and pepper.  

In a large salad bowl combine kale, almonds, cheese and apples.  Toss with dressing.

Notes:
*You may not need all the dressing-use as much or as little as you like