How to Make a Roasted Beet Salad ♥

Today's beet salad recipe: Just roasted beets with a little cheese (feta or goat or blue) but somehow, so much more. So rich and full of satisfaction, just one (Old Points) or two (PointsPlus) Weight Watchers points.

Never met a beet salad I didn't love, nope, nary not a one. If there's a beet salad on the menu, odds are high (as in 99.9%) that I'll be chomping at the beet bit. I recall one memorable beet salad at the Snake River Grill in Jackson, Wyoming three years ago, another at Brasserie here in St. Louis just last week and dozens in between. I love how chefs vary something a simple roasted beet salad, some times dressing up the beets, but often just letting them stand alone almost-black and all aglisten.

But it was our friend Maxine Stone -- the Maxine I call her now, she of Missouri's Wild Mushrooms, the guidebook to foraging for mushrooms commissioned by the Missouri Department of Conservation plus the Hot 'n' Sour Chickpeas everyone's loving -- who's had me lusting for one beet salad after another. At dinner one relaxed and unseasonably warm April Friday evening, she laid out a simple supper, mushroom and butternut squash ravioli (St. Louisans, watch for these in the freezer at Viviano's On the Hill, they were fabulous) sauteed with tiny bites of morels and asparagus; roasted beets with goat cheese; and a simple salad and good bread. Among friends, what a feast!

My version starts with roasted beets served at room temperature for the most flavor, with a few chunks of good feta -- which, at room temperature, also turns as creamy as goat cheese, but with fewer calories. A good stinky blue cheese? Yes, that would be dreamy too. I use just a teaspoon of olive oil to make the beet cubes slickery, a touch of lemon juice to brighten it all, a quick chop-chop of fresh dill (or chive or basil or tarragon or ...) for contrast, a sprinkle of salt and a dash of pepper. That's it. Sublime.
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