Skip to main content

Beet Salad & the Best Birthday Potluck!

I know I have friends with cooking skills, but it is still amazing when we come together with homemade food and it is of a phenomenal level! I hosted a potluck for my 27th Birthday this year and had an amazingly talented turnout (of food and people!). My roommate K-Dog made a delicious Gluten Free/Dairy Free Pumpkin Bundt cake & a frosting made from Almond milk, to roaring reviews. Other great contributions involved grilled steak, shrimp skewers and homemade peach ice cream (although not dairy free).

I went to the farmer's market down the street on Saturday morning for some local/seasonal inspiration and left with a good amount of fresh beets in a variety of colors. Since I discovered the canned beets I had as a child are not the only option, I'm in love with this colorful, flavorful root and all the varieties you can find here in Seattle. I also find great enjoyment in turning opinions around of a vegetable such as the often hated beet. When prepared the right way, they are so delicious and always a gorgeous addition to the array of dishes on a table. I decided to roast the beets and prepare a salad that let their natural flavor shine through. Paired with tangy, sweet oranges and tossed in a simple vinaigrette dressing, the beets were simple and delicious...if I do say so myself!

As a new culinary student, I have been instructed to not trust any old recipe from the Internet, so now search more on sites that are reliable and edited by food experts. I found this recipe on Epicurious.com (courtesy of Bon Appetit Magazine). Conveniently, it called for supreme'd oranges, which I need serious practice on for my knife competency exam at the end of the quarter. I'm pleased to report most everyone enjoyed the beet salad, including the majority who insisted they were beet haters when they walked in the door! I'm still getting used to the bitter flavor of greens, so I left them out and if you're not a lactard like me, I would add feta cheese...mmm.

Here's the recipe to give it a shot yourself :) Cheers! -l.v.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The End is Near

On January 4 th I will begin my 5 th & final quarter of culinary school. It's been 15 months of 5 am alarms, full-time student/part time worker budget & a whole lot of stress. But it has also been rewarding and a great deal of fun. I have made some life-long friends and countless connections I hope to carry me through to where I want to be. The problem now is to figure out where that is. How do you decide where to direct your focus in life? When does the sign show up, telling you where to go, what to do, who to be? I've done this once, graduated from college, took a job, worked a 9-5...and was quite successful at it. So, what's the hold up now?? The uncertainty I feel regarding my next career move is enough to cause shortness of breath, nervous actions and mental blocking to keep myself from over thinking about the decisions I have to make. Today I'm going to spiff up my resume and apply for some jobs. Or, at least make some connections, since there aren'...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Cookbooks=Inspiration

I am the proud new owner of 4, yes 4, shiny new cookbooks. Each is signed by the author, which I love. I have a small obsession with signed cookbooks, can hardly resist a purchase when the author is near to place their personal message to me on the title page. It's enough instant excitement to cause nervous chatter or lack thereof on my part. As I sit at the kitchen table tonight, trying to nail down a great dessert recipe for my C.O.D. (final culinary school project) I'm reading snippets from " The Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef ", loving the personal stories she shares. Love "grocery shopping as foreplay"...as I have to agreee...picking out the evening's dinner is fabulously fun and romantic for food minded people. While I love going alone because I can peruse the aisles for hours (as I often do), shopping with another person you're going to cook for brings the excitement to a different level. It's fun to see what people notice and be influenced...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lunch Club!

At my office we have a "Lunch Club" that gets together about once a week. There are currently 7 people in the group ranging from a recent college grad, to a father of 2 tweens and even the boss woman (who is a great French/Canadian cook)! Each member agrees to cook 1 lunch over the 7 week period, so you are enjoying several homemade meals and only cooking once! It's a brialliant plan really, one that I'm quite proud to be part of! This past week was my turn to cook and that meant the most difficult part of all...chosing a recipe from the hundreds floating around my house in magazines and cookbooks. Trying to be quick and decisive, I grabbed the current issue of Natural Health I was reading and committed to making something from inside, as long as it looked good and didn't call for excessively priced ingredients. The April 2009 issue included a focus on Latin Cooking with Ingrid Hoffmann, host of "Delicioso" (airs on The Food Network, too bad we can't...
Post a Comment
Read more