Winter Eating - Creative Salads

Beets!

Roasted Beet Salad with Oranges

This is a great winter recipe, Oranges are in season in Florida and beets are great storage crop that you can store for a long time in your crisper drawer in a plastic bag or are usually available at farmers markets. You can use any beets of your preference for this recipe

Ingredients

3 medium beets with beet greens attached

1 large orange

1/2 sweet onion, cut through root end into thin wedges

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

1/2 teaspoon grated orange peel

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F. Trim greens from beets. Cut off and discard stems. Coarsely chop leaves and reserve. Wrap each beet in foil with a sprinkle of thyme. Place beets directly on oven rack and roast until tender when pierced with fork, about 1 hour 30 minutes. Cool. Peel beets, then cut each into 8 wedges or dice depending on your preference. Place beets in medium bowl. Cook beet greens in large saucepan of boiling water just until tender, about 2 minutes. Drain. Cool. Squeeze greens to remove excess moisture. Add greens to bowl with beets. Cut peel and white pith from orange. Working over another bowl and using small sharp knife, cut between membranes to release segments. Add orange segments and onion to bowl with beet mixture. Whisk vinegar, oil, garlic, and orange peel in small bowl to blend; add to beet mixture and toss to coat. You may have a little of the dressing left over, you don’t want the beets to swim in the dressing, just a good coating. Season with salt and pepper. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Serve. Use extra dressing in chopped salad, or light coleslaw dressing.