We recently went to The National Gallery in Washington DC, and ate lunch there.  Featured were a series of salads.   We enjoyed the salads so much that we took a picture of the menu with our I phone so that we could remember the ingredients and went home and tried to duplicate them.  This is one of those salads.

The salad called for purple kale.  Purple kale is not really purple, but it does have purple veins.  It is more tender than either the other kale varieties.  However, it does have a thick mid vein much like Swiss chard.  Rip this mid vein before chopping or tearing the kale, as you would with Swiss chard.

Ingredients:

1. 1 butternut squash, medium sized
2. 1-tablespoon olive oil
3. 1 bunch purple kale
4. 4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
5. ½ cup pickled raisins (click for recipe on this blog)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1. Peel and seed the butternut squash and then cut it into ¾” squares.
2. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and coat with the olive oil.
3. Bake the butternut squash for 15 minutes and then turn them. Continue baking for
4. Another 10 minutes (25 minutes total).
5. While the squash is baking, make the pickled raisins (click for recipe).
6. Remove from the oven. Allow to cool completely. (Cooking the butternut squash can be done the day before and refrigerated, as can the pickled raisins)
7. Meanwhile, wash the purple kale. Rip the coarse mid vein, and then coarsely chop the kale into bite size pieces.  Spin dry.
8. Drain the pickled raisins using only the raisins, but no liquid.
9. Transfer the kale to a serving dish, add in the butternut squash, the feta, and the pickled raisins, toss the mixture, and serve.