I’ve been on vacation this week, touring D.C. I think I did more in 4 days than some people might do in a week or more (travelogue coming early next week). Yesterday, we landed at my sister Jane’s house in Maryland for a weekend of visiting before heading home.

Jane arranged to have all the ingredients on hand for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Chunky Beets and Icy Red Onions, so I wouldn’t have to miss a post. Also, she, like me, adores a good beet salad. It was also a little bit selfish, but in a good way.

Beet salad is a favorite of mine. I have several in my repertoire, and hoped to find a new favorite in this recipe. We roasted the beets, because I think they taste best that way. The roasting caramelizes the sugar in the beets, giving an earthy sweetness to the beets that I enjoy. I’m not really a fan of raw onions, but, for this recipe, the onions are briefly soaked in water, and then you change the bathwater, and soak them further with water and ice. This treatment dramatically softened the sharp taste of the onions while keeping the onions crisp. For herbs, we added Dorie’s preferred oregano, plucked from Jane’s herbs outside. Finally, we crumbled some goat cheese into the salad.

Jane, Howard, and I all agreed on the final verdict. This beet salad was passable, but nothing special. The vinaigrette lacked the bite we all prefer (we thought it needed a lot more mustard). So, while we’ll finish this up over the course of the weekend, I’m not sure it earns a place in my beet salad rotation. Here’s a link to my favorite version of beet salad.

By the way, we had an excellent food day today. We had lunch at the very edgy restaurant Volt in downtown Frederick. It was a delicious and very creative meal in a striking setting. We ended the meal with a tour of the kitchen, which was fun. Dinner was at the opposite end of the sophistication scale. We ate burgers, fries, and shakes on the picnic tables outside Freez King, also in Frederick. Yum! And, I got to ride to dinner on the back of my brother-in-law Danny’s Harley, only the second motorcycle ride in my life. It was a thrill.

Other participating bloggers will also share their thoughts on the same recipe. You can find links to their posts at the LYL for this recipe at French Fridays with Dorie.