Celery and Herb Salad

You must be thinking: She emerges from her blog-coma of months of not posting and the first thing she comes up with is celery salad?! Well, let me tell you, I have decided celery has been way too underrated and it is time for that to end. Relegated to mirepoix's and gluey cream of soup cans, celery's loser status on the vegetable chart has been cemented- I myself have been guilty, refusing to put it in my tuna, letting it wilt for weeks in my vegetable drawer but that ends here and now.This salad is the perfect way to demonstrate how delicious celery can be as the star of the show. Its crisp texture and fresh flavor are perfect to add boatloads of parsley, deeply toasted almonds, sweet and tangy pomegranate seeds and scallions. This salad looks beautiful, tastes amazing and has been added to my Shabbat table rotation where it is fought over down to the last almond. You will not regret this. Enjoy!


8 large stalks of celery including all the leaves, the more leaves the better
1/2 cup chopped parsley
3 scallions, sliced thinly
8 pitted dates, thinly sliced (optional, but I love the chewy texture it adds)
1/3 cup pomegranate seeds (or dried cranberries)
1/4-1/3 cup toasted slivered almonds (I do 1/3 cup because the almonds are my favorite part)
Juice of one lemon
2 Tbl light olive or canola oil
salt and pepper


Slice the celery stalks thinly and chop up the leaves. Add it all to a bowl and mix in the parsley, scallions, dates and pomegranate. Add the lemon juice, oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix in the almonds just before serving.