summer salad #5

Just beet it

I bought these beautiful beets at the  The Stop Farmers’ Market last weekend. It’s our neighbourhood farmers’ market, just a couple of blocks from our house, at the Artscape Wychwood Barns – host to the Gluten Free Garage on November 11th!

I always look forward to our Saturday morning market ritual. Rob gets his freshly ground coffee and homestyle pickles, the girls get their goodies and sample their favourite cheeses, and I do the rounds, visiting my favourite
vendors and filling up my shopping bag. There is such incredible variety at this farmers’ market, definitely an inspiration to me for the Gluten Free Garage. But it’s always the fresh organic local produce that entices me most – so colourful, so alluring, so full of possibility.

Last Saturday it was these babies that caught my eye. (And the smell of fresh basil caught my nose.)

I thought of my friend Scott and his insanely delicious beet salad. Here is the recipe, with a few flourishes of my own. I guarantee, if you like beets you will love this salad (even Franny, our 4 year old, gobbled it up). I love beets and
I love Scott even more.

Scott’s beet salad

4-5 medium beets
1 medium red onion
small bunch of fresh basil, chopped (I like to cut my herbs with scissors)
extra virgin olive oil
raspberry wine vinegar
sugar, salt and pepper to taste
raspberries (throw in as many as you want)
fresh lemon juice
chopped walnuts
crumbled goat cheese (I’ve discovered this delicious honey goat cheese from Celebrity International)

Here are Scott’s instructions. He’s my kind of salad maker:

“Boil beets until cooked, peel and cube them (once boiled, the skin will slide off easily). Dice onion and mix with beets. Add a small bunch of chopped fresh basil. Add oil and vinegar, then sugar, salt and pepper to taste. You may want to add some fresh raspberries for a really nice touch. I usually add a squeeze of lemon juice to freshen it up. Most of this I do to taste, so ingredients and
specific amounts are a little vague, but it’s better that way because you can construct it to your own palate and add a little creative touch here and there.”

I’ve taken the liberty and added walnuts and goat cheese, which takes this
salad to a whole new level. Enjoy!

If we’re lucky, maybe Scott will share his recipe for home-cured salmon (aka gravlax) with us one day…