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ffwd: lime and honey beet salad
I can’t believe it’s already Friday again. This month is passing by at lightning speed. And other than Dorie recipes, I haven’t cooked anything interesting this month.
I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned it before, but beets are one of my favorite vegetables. I didn’t discover this until I was out of my parents’ house and cooking on my own, but once I had tasted their sweet earthy goodness, I was hooked.
My favorite way to eat beets is as beet salad, and my favorite recipe for them includes walnuts and lots of mustardy vinaigrette. Here’s that recipe. However, I’m always open to new ideas. This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie is Lime and Honey Beet Salad, so I was happy to try something different.
I prefer beets roasted to steamed, so that’s how I cooked them. After an hour in the oven, the skin usually slips right off, making a non-fuss preparation. Cookbooks always caution about the possibility of stained fingers when peeling the beets this way, but I’ve never had it happen.
The beets are cut into wedges and tossed with a refreshing vinaigrette spiked with lime zest and lime juice along with honey (not my own yet). Some chopped fresh herbs add some color. I used chives and thyme from my backyard herb garden.
The recipe made less than I thought. I used one bunch of beets but didn’t weigh it, so it must have been less than a pound. Two of us finished this off as a side in one meal.
I really liked Dorie’s beet salad. It had zing from the lime and an extra dose of sweetness from the honey (beets are so sweet on their own). I don’t think this version will displace my usual mustardy version as my go-to recipe, but it merits a place in the summer rotation.
I also tried the Grated Carrot Salad from AMFT this week. I was desperate for a fast vegetable side dish, and carrots seemed to be the only vegetable in the refrigerator. I didn’t have the two salads at the same meal, but they would have paired nicely. The carrot salad was delicious.
If you’d like the recipes for either of these salads, we don’t post the recipes, but consider getting your own copy of the book, Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. You won’t be sorry.
To read about other lime and honey beet salads made this week, check out the other bloggers’ links at French Fridays with Dorie.
french fridays with dorie: crab and grapefruit salad
I’m a Maryland girl. Though I don’t live there anymore, I grew up in Rockville, a D.C. suburb. Maryland is synonymous with crab, or at least it used to be, so I was happy to see this week’s choice for French Fridays with Dorie was a crab and grapefruit salad.
For this salad, lump crabmeat is gently tossed with a confetti of tiny chopped vegetables. I loved the colorful array of red pepper, cucumber, scallions, and jalapeño pepper. I went with the bonne idée and added some diced avocado too. And, of course, there was grapefruit, both segments of the fruit and grapefruit juice for the acid.
A handy-dandy grapefruit spoon, with its serrated edge, made quick work of cutting the grapefruit into segments. I’ll have to remember this inspired trick when I make winter fruit salad.
The avocado made me think of Mexican, so I added some chopped cilantro and garnished the salad with cilantro leaves instead of the suggested mint.
As I’ve mentioned before, my husband doesn’t like fruit mixed with a savory course, but he made a rare exception and agreed to try out the salad (he really likes crab). He thought it wasn’t bad, even if fruit was one of the ingredients.
Overall, I’d call this recipe a success, though I’m not really sure where it fits in the calendar for seasonal eating. With the crab, it’s more of a meal salad, but, in winter, when grapefruits are plentiful, a cold meal is not as enticing as in summer when citrus feels out of place.
In any case, the salad was a lovely light supper. I served it with a delicious new kind of lavash chips I found at Costco. It would make an even lovelier elegant lunch. The leftovers weren’t bad for a brown bag lunch at work either.
You can read about the other bloggers refreshing salads here. We don’t post the recipes, but I found it here (look at recipe 11 of 21). Or, you can always find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
By the way, I ordered a used copy of Baking with Julia. It’s on its way, so I’m hoping to join up with Tuesdays with Dorie, another social cooking adventure, starting in April, depending on when the book arrives.
