Incredibly beautiful salads!

BTW, I am sure you all know about this harmless but alarming condition after enjoying beets:

Don't run to the hospital emergency room after you've gone to the bathroom for #1 or #2, No, you are not bleeding to death.

dcarch

Try black walnuts (crumbled, lightly toasted) with roasted beets, use a mild dressing (champagne vinegar is especially good in this). It was an unexpected pairing we ran across in a restaurant's green salad a couple of years ago.

Also - just plain roasted red beets by themselves, quartered or halved, scented with true, or Ceylon, cinnamon. Phenomenal! Don't use cassia - get the real stuff for this one. It needs to be subtle.

Mix some greek yogurt with a little lemon juice, garam masala, chopped coriander, seasoning and arrange the beetroot on top.

I regularly make this roasted beet salad. It's an Italian recipe. Very simple and delicious as they usually are.

I roast about half a dozen beets at 250 C (that would be 480 F) for 2 hours. Just wash them well, pat dry, wrap with foil and bake.

I take them out and open the foil to let out steam. Once the've cooled enough I peel them, cube them, and toss them with equal quantities of olive oil and vinegar with a bit of salt. For half a dozen medium size beets I use 2 tablespoons oil and 2 tablespoons vinegar.

This salad can be served at room temp or cold.

It's best on the day of. It's still very good the day after. It's reasonably nice on the third day. On the fourth day it's not so nice any more, but it hardly ever survives that long.

I finally made a beet salad last night (will post photos later). I had roasted the beets before - 10 of them (they were small), wrapped in foil and oiled. I baked them in the toaster oven at 425°, and they were completely done, probably because they were small. I left them in the fridge a couple of days before I got around to making the salad, and they were extremely easy to peel - you don't have to peel them while they are still warm. I rubbed olive oil on my hands before handling them, and that way my hands did not get stained.

For the salad, I used mixed greens, put slices beets on top of that (two beets per person), toasted walnuts, and cubed blue cheese. I made a dressing out of balsamic vinegar, Sauvignon Blanc vinegar, walnut oil, olive oil, freshly ground pepper, and coarse truffle salt - just because I happened to have it. I intended to use only walnut oil in the dressing, but it was too bland. Next time I will try to use Gorgonzola cheese, as the blue cheese was too mild. I agree that black walnuts would be better as well, but I only had regular walnuts, which I had bought in bulk at the Lebanese/Turkish market (It might be Syrian - it's hard for me to tell, but there is a Turkish restaurant attached to it, and a lot of the items are from Lebanon and Syria.).

This salad was very similar to what I had years ago at Joe's Restaurant in Venice. Joe's is no longer open, but I no longer live in Venice.

Sounds lovely! Good tip about oiling the hands before you peel the beets, I hadn't thought of that.

sleevendog those pickles are gorgeous! Do tell what the ingredients are, and how you make them, pretty please!

I just posted somewhere. Things fall down the line and get a bit lost. I keep meaning to do a fridge DIY thread for all things most people buy. I just enjoy making my own condiments fresh. Always learning and exploring. Maybe if you search above 'fresh fridge pickles' you might find an earlier posting?

10 or so yrs ago I had a blog but most wanted a perfect recipe for everything and I'm a use-what-you-have cook. Stock what you like an experiment using a basic recipe but make it yours. More common now than 10yrs ago.

Last weeks roasted golden beet salad

I grow all my own salad greens and use chopped fresh pickles as a dressing...

For a while, back in the day, I took pics of my fridge once a week. Always looks like this, and freezer full of bulk whole seed for spice mixes. Just not enough hours in a day. I do take advantage of what hours I do have.

We had planned to go to the mountain house to tap our trees for maple but weather is horrid,...melting snow and rain. So,... watching the Olympics, Spring cleaning, (ish) and making SpringRolls for supper.

sleevendog, your freezer is far more organized than mine, that's for sure. I've been freezer cleaning too, and just found a couple of pork chops from 2015. Yeah, those are dog food...

I love beets and your salad looks really good, I should pick up some fresh beets and make that. I get hungry for different vegetables in the winter, I have so much available in my garden during the spring/summer/fall months.

When in Chicago Sherry (sheshebop), Linda (doucanoe) and I had a raw beet salad, paper thin slices of beet in a sweet orange viniagrette over fresh greens. They called it "beet carpaccio" and it was very, very good. I never did recreate that, I'd forgotten until just now.

Annie

sleevendog thanks for the pointer. Do you start with the "quick salt pickles" recipe? That bowl of pickles is making me drool!