Farmer's Market Finds!

Can you handle how much I have posted over the past 2 days? No? Me either. Ha!

Today was a beautiful day (okay, it still is!) and I headed to the farmer's market this morning. Serious growing season has definitely begun! Look what I found:

Lettuce, shiitake mushrooms, beautiful tomatoes ...

... Amish-grown peaches, cippolini onions, and beets.
For all of this (plus a bottle of water and bbq pulled pork sandwich for me!), I paid only $22! And everything looks so beautiful.

In my previous life of a person who was not very experimental with veggies, I didn't like beets. But the other day, I had some beets on a salad from a salad bar and I thought they were mighty tasty. So, I picked up some beets at the market and then looked up this tasty sounding recipe for Roasted Beet Salad with Walnuts and Goat Cheese.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup walnuts

2 teaspoons olive oil

dash salt

dash pepper

6 medium beets, trimmed and washed (I only used 2 - because there is only one of me!)

1/3 cup thinly sliced red onions (I used one sliced cippolini onion)

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (I only used about 2)

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (I just threw in a dash of apple cider vinegar)

3/4 teaspoon salt (I just threw in a little bit)

1/4 teaspoon sugar (I just put in a little honey)

dash of black pepper

1/2 lb fresh spinach leaves (I just used my farmer's market lettuce)

3 ounces fresh goat cheese, crumbled

Okay. Clearly I changed pretty much every part of this recipe. But that's not the point.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees - toss the walnuts with the olive oil, salt and pepper and throw them on a cookie sheet. Toast in the oven for around 7-10 minutes. Remove them from the oven and set aside to cool.

Wrap each beet individually in aluminum foil and place on a cookie sheet. Roast in the oven (still at 350 degrees) for about an hour and a half. Take them out and let cool for about 20 minutes. Then, run under cold water and peel the skins off. Chop into pieces, throw them in a mixing bowl with the onion.

Then, mix the dressing up and throw it in the bowl with the beet/onion mixture. Let sit out at room temperature for at least one hour. Then - serve over lettuce with goat cheese and throw the walnuts on top. Delish! I also drizzled some of the, um, beet juice/dressing on top. Look how pretty it is - hot pink!

Anyway, this was so freaking delicious that I gobbled it up. And then gobbled up a second serving. Quick, go make this!!!