Tired of the same old salad?
Skip the tomatoes (they’re not in season yet, anyway) and add beets!
A restaurant that we went to often in Minneapolis was famous for its house salad. It had pickled beets in it.
I’ve always love pickled beets.
I can’t buy them here, of course, but I can buy cooked, whole beets.
I’ve figured out a quick way of making Pickled Beets, which I do often. It takes about 10 minutes.
Even more quickly, for this salad, just heat the sliced, cooked beets in 3 tbs Balsamic vinegar with 1 tsp sugar. Let them marinate while you make the salad. Drain before adding.
Salad with Pickled Beets and Feta Cheese
Total time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 small head Romaine or other lettuce
- 2 tbs fresh basil leaves
- 6oz (180gr) pickled beets
- 2oz (60gr) feta, crumbled
- Creamy Yogurt Dressing:
- 1/4 cup Greek Yogurt
- 1 tbs Dijon-style mustard
- 1 tbs white Balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbs good olive oil
Instructions:
- Combine all ingredients for dressing and whisk well.
- Put lettuce in a salad bowl and add half of the dressing.
- Toss well to coat. Taste, add more dressing if needed
- Add beets, feta, combine and serve.
I learned something today.
I was reading an interesting bit in a newspaper today….. About vaccinating children.
It was in the Q & A section of an English language French newspaper.
Someone wrote in, saying that they were thinking about moving to France. They wanted to know if they had to have their children vaccinated
Apparently, they were more concerned about their children being vaccinated then they were about their children getting the diseases the vaccines prevent.
I have to admit I don’t understand that position at all. I have this silly tendency of believing the actual research by actual scientists…..
Anyway, I thought I would share a summary of the answer to the question:
In France, refusing to vaccinate a child will result in six months in prison and a 3,750.00 euro fine (app $4,000.00).
Further, it might come under the Penal Code which results in two years in prison and a 30,000.00 euro fine for ‘compromising the health and safety, morals or education’ of their children by not doing their legal duty.
On the one hand, France takes great care to ensure the health and well-being of all its residents.
On the other hand, no one will call Child Protective Services on a parent who allows their child to walk home alone from school.
That explains why the docs all look so appalled when I tell them that I don’t have a vaccination book. All French people do.
I assure them that my childhood vaccinations are all in order. They make sure that my adult vaccinations remain so.
Vaccination is becoming even more important as antibiotic resistance increases. The sore arm I had recently is minor in comparison to the infection it is protecting me against!
I had too much pickled beetroot as a child so tend to avoid it now particularly as my husband is not keen on it either. I have developed a taste for parsnips which I didn’t like either but is one of his favourites so I am not discounting my tastes changing – beetroot always look good in a salad.
Yes, the vaccination debate rages on but I am with the French !!
I too agree with the French. I worked in a hospital for 12 years and saw the ravages from preventable disease that many of the elderly exhibited. Saw it myself as a child, and my father didn’t walk until the age of 3 because of the polio he’d contracted.
Now, as to the beets, I love beets. Boiled, buttered, pickled, doesn’t matter. Love them. I do pickle them in season and sometimes, that will be our side salad. Just the beets. I also freeze them for a hot side, but you mustn’t overcook them when you freeze them or they’ll be mushy.
Nothing better than beets roasted in a little olive oil and thyme, then topped with a little goat cheese or a lot…
When I grew up in the Navy, we all had vaccination books to keep track. My favorite story about vaccinations was one time when my Dad was being vaccinated for life in the Far East and he was going down a line of corpsman, each of whom was delivering a different shot. The last one hurt quite a lot and Dad protested, “Ouch! What was that one for?” And the corpsman replied, “Yellow fever, Sir.” Dad complained “Hey, I wasn’t due for yellow fever!” Quick as a wink, the corpsman replied, “No problem, Admiral, yellow fever is on the house today!” Gotta love a corpsman with a sense of humor!
Gill, I just got my tetanus booster – with all the crap that gets unearthed here every year I need it! I recently discovered parsnips, too. They’re getting easier to find here. Beets are everywhere.
Kate, in my mind there’s nothing to debate….
nightsmusic, you’re right…. it wasn’t that long ago that so many diseases were not preventable. I remember well my smallpox ‘booster’ – that really hurt! I rarely see raw beets here, always cooked – with a big fork to put them in the bags
Deline, a lot of goat cheese, just starting to melt all over the beets…. tonight, I think….
Zoomie, I can’t even imagine the number of vaccinations for the Far East back then. I remember getting the shots at school when I was a child – lining up for each nurse. I still can;t look LOL
Katie….love pickled beets! I make them every year, sometimes twice a year. They are great with anything. Growing up in a Danish household, pickled beets were in the cupboard always. They are great on a ham sandwich too!
Ina, we love them too, and they are a lot easier and quicker to make than other pickles. Ham sandwich, eh?