Roasted Beet Salad

I used a mixture of red and golden beets, but use any you can find. They come in many varieties, including a beautiful peppermint striped. This would be lovely with the first heirloom beets of the year from the farmers market.

Roasted beets

Scrub and trim 8 medium beets. Discard stems and reserve greens, which taste similar to spinach, to use in another dish (see Girly Greens Lunch ). Place in center of a large piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil. Fold foil around beets into a sealed package. Bake in pouch at 400 degrees until fork tender (about half an hour).

Let cool. Peel (the peel will now slide right off - much easier than if you peel before baking), and slice into 1/4 inch thick discs.


Assembly
2 Tbs. orange muscat vinegar or other mild specialty vinegar (raspberry also works well)
1 tsp. fresh thyme
one minola or honey tangerine
sugar, salt & pepper to taste
goat cheese


Marinate beets by mixing with vinegar & thyme. Zest the tangerine onto the beets. Cut segments of tangerine & add to beets, squeezing any leftover juice from the white membrane. Toss with sugar, salt & pepper. Let marinate 1 hour. Sprinkle chunked goat cheese over the top before serving.



***If you are using red beets and another variety, be sure to marinate them seperately, or all you ingredients will turn red long before serving time.***

We had this with spicy peanut crusted tilapia.