Ewww Beets! Easy Peasy Salad.

Remember when your mom opened a can of beets, or a bag of frozen brussel sprouts, heated it up, and put that shit on your plate.  You were like "ewwww.  I'm not eating that.  Gross".  I do.  More often than not though, we had fresh vegetables from the garden, and I thank my lucky stars for that, because now I love vegetables.  Especially beets and brussel sprouts. If they're fresh, and well prepared, they are one of my favorite things.
I also have a strange obsession with beet greens.  I know... but they're so good and tender and flavorful, and they don't leave that film on your teeth like spinach does.  Plus, they have preeetttyy red stems.  Sadly fresh beets are difficult to find here in Paris.  For some bizarre reason, they're sold cooked, even at the farmers markets, and they look like blobs of black red gunk. So when I see them fresh with greens on, I buy in bulk.  That leaves me with lots of actual beets, so I make this lovely roasted beet salad with orange and shallot dressing.  It's heavenly, and healthy.
I also have a special way of cooking my beets.  I don't remember where I got the recipe, but it's no fail, awesomeness.  Many of the recipes I've read call for cooking them, then removing the skin.  I've heard horror stories about this.  Kitchen towels stained forever, hands burned, the skin never actually coming off, of the beets at least...  I think I even tried it once a long time ago and had all those problems.  Here's the fail-safe way.  





Roasted Beets
can be made up to 4 days ahead and refrigerated

Peel beets
Roll in salt
Place in foil packet or covered baking dish.
Roast in 400F oven until a fork pierces the beets easily at least 40 minutes depending on size.





Beet Salad with Orange Shallot Dressing
main for 2

Ingredients
lettuce
2 medium roasted beets sliced
goat cheese
1 tbsp finely diced shallots/onion
3 tbsp freshly squeezed orange/mandarin/clementine juice
1 tbsp olive oil
optional
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
orange slices
fresh toasted pecan
salt and pepper

Dressing
Mix olive oil, orange juice, salt, pepper, shallots, mustard until combined.

Assemble
Put lettuce in a bowl, sprinkle beets on top, (optional orange slices and pecans) add dressing and toss, crumble goat cheese on top.
Enjoy with a fresh baguette.