Harvest Kale and Sweet Potato Salad – PJ’s Restaurant

If you’re just looking for a recipe for a delicious Harvest Kale and Sweet Potato Salad, click the “Jump to Recipe” button above to skip my life update! If you’re a loyal reader or friend that wants to read about my recent goings-on, keep on reading.

Fall Comfort Kitchen @PJ’s Restaurant

This kale and sweet potato salad dish was originally adapted by myself and my friend/classmate Serena Tam for our Restaurant Operations Management course. In a typical (non-COVID) year, we would be running our restaurant event in-person at our student-run teaching restaurant on campus. Instead, this semester we’re simply going through most of the planning and logistics aspects of the course (e.g. writing standardized recipes, cost cards, and a marketing plan).

Here’s the event page if you want to check it out: https://www.uoguelph.ca/pjs/event/fall-comfort-kitchen-pjs

Our theme is “Fall Comfort Kitchen”, and the menu items that we’ve selected are meant to reflect that. Though our signature dish is a salad, we hope that the roasted sweet potatoes, spicy chickpeas, warm brown rice, and the maple notes of our toasted walnuts help bring those cozy fall vibes. See below for our other specialty menu items:

Typically, we would be able to have a full hectic restaurant day. 7am receiving, managing our restaurant team (waitstaff, line cooks, etc.), doing all the prep work, marketing our event (and praying people come), closing, and more. Not being able to have this experience is both a win and a loss. On one hand, we don’t get that hands-on, real-life experiential learning that this course is curated to provide. On the other hand, we’re saved a lot of potential stress from what is typically heralded as one of the most stressful course experiences of a nutrition and dietetics student at UofG.

I made my first IG Reels/TikToks!

This was both a fun and aggravating experience. I am definitely late to the game on this one, but I’ve seen many inspirational Reels from food photographers on IG. (Check out: @moriah.brooke for gorgeous flatlay styling!) I honestly don’t know how people make it look so easy. Maybe it’s practice. Perhaps having a tripod would help. I definitely found that TikTok was a LOT easier to use when trying to add text and music.

Nevertheless, I think I’m going to try and make some more short videos to add onto blog posts! I think they’re fun and enriching content that can be both quickly thrown together and viewed (in contrast to long YouTube videos). Here are the two that I made (without text because exporting killed the quality):

1. ASSEMBLING THE HARVEST KALE AND SWEET POTATO SALAD:

2. STYLING THE FLATLAY FOR HARVEST KALE AND SWEET POTATO SALAD

New photography eqipment?

Something else exciting to share … I might be getting some new photography stuff! I just purchased a couple new backdrops to play around with (including one for dark and moody photography – I know, so off-brand). Hopefully a tripod with an extender arm is also in my future so I can stop sweating and breaking my back over overhead shots.

That’s pretty much it for my updates! The recipe below isn’t exactly what you would get if you booked a table at PJ’s, because that would be way too complicated! This one is a little more busy-bee/meal prep friendly. Have fun making this dish, adapted from this recipe by Pinch of Yum.

Much love,

Harvest Kale and Sweet Potato Salad

Recipe by Sophia Hou and Serena TamCourse: Lunch, DinnerDifficulty: Medium

Servings

3-4

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Total time

45

minutes

A filling and delicious fall salad with roasted sweet potato, caramelized onions, crispy chickpeas, and toasted maple walnuts on a bed of kale & brown rice.

Make this recipe? Tag me on social media @houbakes!

Ingredients

• 1 lb sweet potatoes (about 1-2 medium)

• 1 540ml can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

• 1 onion

• 1 tsp smoked paprika

• 1 tsp chili powder

• 1/2 tsp ground cumin

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 3-4 tbsp+ olive or avocado oil

• 1/2 to 1 bunch kale, washed and chopped

• ~20 walnuts, toasted or candied (nut free: pumpkin seeds)

• cooked brown rice, for serving

• salad dressing of choice

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375°F. Lay chickpeas on a dish towel or paper towel and pat to dry. Peel and dice sweet potatoes. Peel and julienne onion.
• In a medium bowl, combine 2 tbsp oil, paprika, chili powder, cumin, and salt. Add chickpeas, potatoes, and onion. Toss to coat; add additional spices or oil if needed. Spread on a baking sheet in a thin and even layer.
• Bake for 10 min, use a spatula to stir to prevent burning, then bake another 10 min. If additional browning or crispiness is desired, bake an additional 5-10min. Remove and cool.
• While the sweet potatoes/chickpeas/onion is baking, massage the kale with a tbsp of oil. This should soften the leaves a bit and make them bright green and shiny in appearance.
• Assemble: For each serving, start by laying a bed of kale and brown rice. Add some of the sweet potatoes, chickpeas, and onions (as much as you want!). Garnish with some walnuts or pumpkin seeds and drizzle on some salad dressing. Yum!

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