Roasted Beets Salad with Wood Barrel Feta & Thief Greens

November 26th, 2006

This is a simple and beautiful salad which uses the seasonal ingredients of Autumn. It almost helps us forget that we’re about to enter the dead of Winter. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:
-approximately 1.5 pounds of fresh organic beets (any color is fine, I like to mix red with yellow)
-best quality sea salt (fleur de sel)
-best quality extra virgen olive oil
-best quality wood barrel Greek feta cheese
-your favorite mix of greens (my thief mix includes 13 different greens mixed together)
-2 tablespoons of fresh mint, chopped finely
Pick your beets carefully. Be sure that the beet green tops (which are great when cooked in the same way as spinach or chard) are fresh and healthy. That is a sign of freshly picked beets. Take your beets and cut off the greens. Run them under cold water and rub them clean. Place them into a ceramic or oven proof baking dish still wet. Be sure they are not too crowded and then cover the dish tightly with foil. Place into a 425 degree oven and bake for 40 minutes or until done. You should be able to pass a sharp knife through the center of each beet without too much resistance.

Remove the beets and allow to cool. Use a paper towel to remove the skin from each of the beets. Slice the beets into 1/4 inch slices and set aside until ready to plate. At this point you can cover and refrigerate until your guests arrive.

To serve take a small amount of your mixed greens and arrange onto each plate. Add 4 slices of beets to each dish and then sprinkle a scant amount of fleur de sel over the top. Now sprinkle the chopped mint. Take the feta cheese (which should be room temperature) and crumble small pieces over and around each dish. Finally drizzle the extra virgen olive oil at the very end and serve immediately. Buon appetito!

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