Recipe time! This winter I have been making a lot of little side salads, it’s a nice way to get some green stuff without feeling overwhelmed by it, and you can change the dressing and flavors every day. This one is a favorite at my house and also uses a winter staple, beets. Beets are one thing we actually learned to love after getting a lot of them through our CSA – I also enjoy all the lovely colors they come in, including the salmon-y ones here!
The inspiration for this recipe came from an old issue of Bon Appétit, this is my simplified version.
For 2 salads:
Crumble about 2 tablespoons of your favorite blue cheese. I like to use Fromage Blue, a kind of creamy cross between blue and brie. You don’t have to put much else in this at all, so feel free to use really nice Roquefort or Stilton and the flavor will come through clearly.
Add a few tablespoons of heavy cream to make about the amount of dressing you want. The longer you let it sit, the more cheese will absorb into the cream and the thicker it will get. I like to leave it until the flavors are blended but it’s still liquid enough to spread over the salad. You can add more cream later if it gets too thick.
Add: About 1 tsp finely chopped shallot
A dab of stone ground mustard
A small splash of rice vinegar (or another type you like)
As you can tell, you can vary this a lot by taste. If you have really nice cheese, feel free to use only a tiny amount of the other flavors.
Stir together, let sit and then enjoy!
We like to eat this on a salad of roasted beets, romaine, and whatever other fresh veggies we have in the fridge (pea pods are especially nice in the fall) with walnuts on top.
Extra: My favorite method for roasting beets: Cut off tops and roots and place beets in a deep dish with about ½” of water in the bottom. Cover with foil and bake at 375 until beets are very tender when pierced with a fork, then let cool and peel – they’re so much easier to peel after cooking!
What’s your favorite way to use beets? Your favorite blue cheese?
Tasha Miller Griffith 