Life keeps getting crazier and while I am now writing my thesis I needed to take a break from chemistry. Thought I would keep writing but move to a new subject, food. I think there are only a few things keeping me sane right now and one of them is yoga and another is baking/cooking. Even Aya has gotten a little devilish as of late. Probably out of neglect but for her revenge she has stepped up her wire chewing antics. A few days ago as I was furiously failing at writing an experimental section, Aya chewed my laptop’s power cord until sparks flew. She was not harmed but she did get a nice squirt of water.
To add to my stress I have decided to eat a little bit healthier to combat my comfort eating habits. Healthier meals are kind of a challenge because I tend to get stuck eating the same low calorie meals, mainly a salad. But that usually ends with me porking down French fries sooner or later. This time I have been trying to diversify my meals and recently I took a trip to the farmers market. Let me just say that I LOVE the Dane County farmers market. It circles the entire capital and there are stand after stand of fresh vegetables, pastries, cheese, meat, flowers, fruit and of course a staple for a lot of people, hot spicy cheese bread. This time as I walked around I was inspired by beets! There were beautiful and plump red and gold beets out and I just had to buy a bunch of each color. Since they were in season I only paid a dollar for each bunch. At the time I wasn’t really sure what to make with the beets but remembered that last summer at a Tapas restaurant I had the most delicious beet salad. So I decided to give it a go.
Having never touched a raw beet before this recipe is crazy simple but super tasty. The best part is that beet salads are kind to your waist while still bursting with flavor and texture. In this salad there is a sweetness from the beets, a nutty component from the walnuts, tart crunch from pears and a creamy melt in your mouth flavor from the goat cheese. While raw beets are delicious, you can substitute in canned beets to speed things up. If you are using raw beets you can either boil or roast them. When boiling the beets be very careful not to pierce the skin as this leads to “bleeding” and a loss of flavor. If you are roasting, wrap each beet in foil and roast until they are tender. After the beets are cooled, for boiled beets remove them from the boiling pot and dunk them in cold water, remove the skins. Try to rinse off all the beet juice as quickly as possible because this can lead to some pretty pink stains. This salad was perfect for summer and I hope that you give it a try.
Beet and Goat Cheese Salad
Ingredients (for one serving)
1 red beet, cooked and sliced
1 gold beet, cooked and sliced
1 oz of goat cheese (from a 4 oz log)
¼ cup of coarsely chopped walnuts
1 small pear, sliced (I chose a Forelle pear but any crisp pear will do)
1/8-1/4 cup of thinly sliced red onions
1-2 cups of lettuce (I used spring mix but again this is really whatever you prefer)
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp of olive oil
1/8 wedge of lemon
dash of salt
dash of pepper
- Take the raw beets and cook by either boiling or roasting. Try not to pierce the skin before cooking because the beets will bleed and lose flavor.
- If you are roasting your beets wrap each beet in aluminum foil and place on a cookie sheet in case there are some drips.
- If you are boiling your beets place them in warm water and bring them to a simmer and cover. Boil for about 45 minutes. When you lift them out of the water and the skin slides right off (when you touch it) that is when the beets are done.
- Remove the skins of the beets but do not rinse the beets off.
- After removing the hot beets, either from the oven or a pot, dunk them in cold water for a few minutes then place them in the refrigerator to cool completely. At this point you can store your beets for at least a week.
- Slice the beets in 1/4” slices and sprinkle with the sugar. If your beets are really sweet and ripe you can omit this step.
- Arrange your salad on a plate. I put the lettuce, red onion, walnuts, pear and goat cheese (crumbled) on one half of the plate. On the other half I arranged the sliced beets, alternating between golden and red beet slices.
- Drizzle the olive oil all over the plate, followed by the lemon wedge, salt and pepper. Those ingredients make up your dressing.
At this point your summer salad is ready to go and be devoured! Again, the beets, for me, were a little intimidating because I had never really seen or helped prepare them before. And even though mine bled a little because I accidentally pierced them a few times the salad turned out fabulous. One great part was that the salad was crisp and delicious for the rest of the week because I might have boiled about 8 beets! I hope you give beet and goat cheese salads a try I think you will melt into the creamy awesomeness that is goat cheese on a sweet red beet!