Raw Beet Salad with Carrot and Ginger (Vegan, Gluten Free)

-->

The sweet, earthy, and delightful crunchy salad is a powerhouse for flavor and nutrients. The lime awakens your palate to the gentle undertone of ginger that carries you away to the Far East. Beets, originally cultivated in the Mediterranean is available in my summer crop share of my CSA. A wonderful jeweled root vegetable, much like the carrot, just needs to be shredded to release it's sweet flavor. What’s especially nice about this salad as well is that you can put it through the food processor for a quick salad. This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman‘s How to Cook Everything who is an expert on getting the most flavors with the simplest ingredients.

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/2 pound small beets without their greens, peeled

1/2 pound carrots, peeled

2 large shallots, finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced ginger

Salt to taste

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

Dressing

2 tablespoons lime juice

1-tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Instructions

      1      Grate the beets and the carrots by hand or use a food processor fitted with a grating disk.

      2      Combine the grated beets and carrots with the shallots and ginger in a bowl.

      3      Season salad with salt and pepper.

      4      Whisk together the limejuice, oil and mustard in a small bowl and pour into salad.  Toss salad and taste seasonings. Adjust the seasoning as necessary.

      5      Toss in the cilantro and serve.

Roasted Beet Salad in Orange Dressing (vegan, gluten free)

My Grandmother would be proud of me.... and even my mother, because I have made a beet salad with zero waste, like in the old country where every bit of an ingredient was used. Not only do I love the beets deep red hue, and their sweetness, but I really get a kick out of using the whole vegetable, root and the greens. In this salad the beets along with the greens were used and for the dressing, the orange zest along with the oranges were used as well.

One of the things I noticed about roasting root vegetables is that it really brings out the sweetness of the vegetables. Take for example, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes and for this salad... beets. You can forgo boiling beets by roasting them in foil and avoid the mess that comes with the red staining on the pots.

Adapted from Bon Appétit, January 2004

Ingredients:
6 medium beets with beet greens attached
2 medium oranges
1 small red onion, finely diced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
Sea salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut the greens from beets. Remove and discard stems. Chop the leaves coarsely and set them aside. Wrap each beet in foil. Place beets directly on oven rack and roast for about 1 hour, until tender when pierced with fork.
2. Let beets cool. Peel beets and then cut each into 8 wedges. Place beets in medium bowl.
3. Cook beet greens in large saucepan of boiling water just until tender, about 2 minutes. Drain and cool. When greens are at room temperature, squeeze them to remove excess moisture. Add greens to bowl with beets.
4. Zest the orange, then cut peel and white pith from oranges. Working over another bowl and using a paring knife, cut between membranes to release segments (this is called supreming).
5. Add orange segments and onion to bowl with beet mixture.
6. Whisk oil, garlic, orange zest in small bowl to blend; add to beet mixture and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Serve.