Kale Caesar Salad with Shrimp

Last August my boyfriend and I took a trip to his hometown of Madison, Connecticut to see his family. His mom, being the sweet woman that she is, welcomed me with open arms and a little goodie bag of gift cards to some of the local shops. Once I saw that there was a card to the local book store I was begging to go, even if I was in my bathing suit and it was pouring rain out. It may or may not have happened just like this. Anyways I picked up a cook book called Every Day Food: Light by the one and only Martha Stewart and spent the whole flight home obsessing over each and every recipe. Then the craziest thing happened. I put it up on my shelf with all of my other cookbooks and forgot about it. Weird. Like that has never happened before. After 6 months of collecting dust, I glanced up at my neglected book, I pulled it down, and got inspired all over again. Literally the first recipe I turned to was a shrimp caesar salad with grilled romaine and homemade caesar dressing. Doing what I do best, I made my own version and now I'm sharing with you!

Kale Caesar Salad with Shrimp
Makes 2 salads

Garlic Caesar Dressing

• 1 head of garlic
• olive oil for drizzling
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 2 tsp. dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• pinch of black pepper
• 1/4 cup good quality olive oil

Shrimp Kale Salad

• 1 head of kale, stems removed and leaves roughly chopped
• 2 corn tortillas
• non-stick cooking spray
• 1 tsp. oil
• 1 tsp. chili powder for sprinkling
• 1lb. large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined 
• 3 tbsp. finely grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Peel off all of the outside covering from the garlic head. Chop up the top 1/4 inch of the garlic head so you can start to see the garlic cloves.

Place the prepared garlic head on some tin foil. Drizzle with olive oil, then wrap the foil tightly around the garlic. Bake on a baking sheet for 45 minutes to an hour until the garlic cloves are softened. Remove from the oven and let cool until you can handle with your bare hands. Then squeeze the garlic cloves out of the "shell".

In a food processor, blend the roasted garlic cloves, lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Blend until completely smooth.

Preheat oven or toaster oven to 375 degrees F. Spray both sides of the corn tortillas with the cooking spray. Lightly sprinkle one side with chili powder and bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until crisp.

Toss the shrimp with the teaspoon oil and remaining chili powder. Bake in the oven with the tortillas during the last 4 minutes, until opaque.

Toss the chopped kale with some of the garlic dressing. Top with some freshly grated parmesan cheese and shrimp. Garnish with your baked tortilla chip (great substitution for croutons). Serve immediately. Reserve remaining garlic dressing in the fridge for up to one week.