This beautiful salad is a perfect start to any meal. Fresh and bursting with flavor and color, it is not your typical green salad.
I love fresh beets. Sometimes they do sit a while in the fridge as I forget just how magical they are. This is one of those recipes that you can rely on to transform that forgotten root into one of the best versions of beets ever!
I made this salad to accompany prime rib this Christmas, and there was not one bite left of it when we finished.
You can find beets, oranges, and greens year-round now, so if you want a lot of color and freshness to start any meal, this is a great bet!
Red beet, greens, and orange salad with Dijon vinaigrette
A colorful, savory, and sweet salad bursting with flavor of roasted beet, fresh greens, and oranges
Prep Time 20 minutesminutes
Cook Time 1 hourhour
Servings 6
Ingredients
4whole red beetsfresh
2orangesmedium to large
2cupsromaine lettucetorn into 1/2-inch pieces
1cupradicchiotorn into 1/2-inch pieces
1/3cupred oniondiced
Dijon Vinaigrette
1tspDijon mustard
1tbsphoney
1/4cupwhite balsamic or white wine vinegar
1/2cupolive oilextra virgin
1/4tspsalt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Remove beet greens and discard (or save for another use)
Wrap beets individually in aluminum foil
Roast in oven, on sheet pan, for one hour, until beets are tender
Meanwhile, peel oranges and cut into 1/2-inch segments
Toss romaine, radicchio, diced red onion, and orange segments in a large salad bowl
Once beets are roasted, remove from oven and let cool – about 10 minutes
Remove beets from foil and, running under cool water, use your fingers to remove skins from beets. Skin should easily slide off if beets are thoroughly cooked
Dice beets into 1/2-inch segments and toss with greens and oranges
Drizzle salad with Dijon vinaigrette and toss well
Warm up your holidays with this sexy, sweet, and spicy cherry salad!
Serrano and charred scallion vinaigrette add just the right amount of spice and smoke to the bed of sweet cherries you lay down to start this dish.
Creamy pinon nuts round out the flavor, along with a bit more “bite” from the scallion. Don’t skimp here – it looks like a lot of onion, but you need the spicy bite to balance out the sweetness of the cherries.
I really do love a good scallion.
Yes!
In the spirit of yearnings and yum, I give you this recipe I adapted from NY Times last year. It reflects my New Mexico roots exactly.
This dish is perfect for Christmas or any time of year, but because I can’t easily find cherries here this time of year, at least in the US, I am naming this one “Christmas in July.”
No matter the occasion, when you make this dish it will be the one that no one has ever had before!
So, in the spirit of Christmas and loving one another, I wish you Merry Christmas and happy cherry hunting!
Overcoming avoidance is key to healing from trauma. This is a story about overcoming fears through nature and healing through cooking.
I thought I’d go back in time and tell the story of my solo overnight camping trip.
My son, his girlfriend, our big dog and I had gone on a trip to this same area of Northern New Mexico earlier in the summer and stayed a couple of nights, so I felt ready to do this. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but something was compelling me.
I wasn’t fully conscious of what was driving me at the time, but there was a transformation happening with me. That was something I had been aware of for a few months by then.
Anyway, morning of the trip, I pack up.
Even for one, packing takes some time. It’s very helpful to have bins of staple items ready to go, as with most types of adventures that require gear (camping, skiing).
As you’ll see, I wasn’t exactly all alone on this one – I brought my little dog, Nibbles, with me. She is my constant companion but not much of a “protector.” She does have a LOUD bark though.
The ride up is totally uneventful, but glorious. Windows open, taking in trees fragrant and brilliant green, we climb, above the 8,000 ft elevation mark.
For this car-camp, I want a semi-developed site, which means one that is off of the road but that is accessible by 4-wheel drive car. It’s muddy, and I definitely don’t want to get stuck out here all alone! Yikes!
These aren’t developed sites in campgrounds. They are ones where folks have accessed areas off-road and built fire rings with rocks and have flattened areas of ground with their tents. Some have remnants of plastic bottle lids, aluminum foil bits, and other trash.
Shaking my head, I wonder if it’s just carelessness, hurriedness, or other reasons people can be so thoughtless. Most complex behavior is multiply-determined, so I settle on that.
There are people around, but the “sites” are spread out enough that it would take a little bit to access.
I have a hard time finding a spot. There aren’t many and the ones that are accessible are all taken.
I’m nearly at the end of the canyon where the tall trees enshroud. Any further north along the road and the canyon opens up to a wide high plain. No one camps there. It’s too exposed along the road and not beautiful.
My spot is quite sweet – it even has a stream running right through the middle.
Nibbles is too afraid to get out of the car. This is new for her.
I know how she feels.
Letting her get her bearings in her own way and time, I set up camp.
Camp table, 5-gallon water jug, old Coleman grill, cooler.
I get out bags of food supply, flashlight, lighter, my bin of cooking and cleaning utensils.
Air mattress, pillow, and sleeping bag.
If you’ve ever been camping, you’ll know that one of the very first things you do is set up your tent. Did I do that? No.
LOL.
This time we are sleeping in the car! 😜 😜😜😜😜😜
We go fishing down the road, didn’t catch anything today, so time to get a fire going and start dinner.
I wanted something really easy but yummy and light enough.
This is an egg and bacon green salad with radicchio, avocado, and grapes. Here’s how it looked when I made it at home:
It’s been a nice day. Earlier, a couple walked by my campsite. I could tell they were wondering what a middle-aged woman was doing up here all alone. Or maybe not. It’s funny either way.
Chilling by the fire with Nibbles, who has relaxed by now, I also feel totally relaxed, at peace.
Two cups of Mexican hot cocoa later, it’s getting pretty dark, stars becoming brighter in the night sky. Without the interference from city lights they are so brilliant. One of the reasons I love Northern New Mexico.
Did I tell you that my sister and I used to camp out just the two of us? We were young when we first started – age 11 – on the neighbor’s land. They owned 100 acres. We were never afraid.
That was before.
Nibs and I settle in the back of the car. It is definitely roomy enough, and comfortable. I am not afraid at all now. The windows are rolled up. And we both fall fast asleep.
Sometime later I wake to the sound of an alarm blaring. WTH??
It’s the freaking car alarm. Is there someone around? What is happening???
Grabbing the flashlight, I investigate each side of the car through the windows.
An animal? A person? Eek…
No – nothing. There is nothing out there.
And then it hits me: I probably set the alarm off when I turned over! It’s that darn auto-alarm feature! OMG, LOL!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I’ve experienced this before.
I find the keys and shut off the alarm, thinking about the couple camping aways down the road. I’m sorry, folks, I really am.
Anyway, I go back to sleep.
After that, I swear, I must have set that alarm off maybe 30 times. 😂😂😂
Sooner or later, I decided to just keep the car key in my hand so I could shut off within a second or two.
Those poor neighboring campers.
Feeling chagrinned the next morning, we were up pretty early. We pretty much booked it out of there. Hahahaha!!! 😆😆😆🤣🤣🤣
But we made it through the night – even got some sleep!
This is an enormous win for me.
Hooray!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉
I make some coffee, pack up, and clean up the site, looking around, thanking the wild for offering solitude.