This salad normally wouldn’t be worth a post, but I’m posting it for two reasons. The first is that it’s a part of my “Husband Alone with the CSA” series and needs to be included to show how I used everything up (including the lettuces). The second reason is because of a fundamentally more important lesson: always pre-roast your beets!

I can’t emphasize that enough. When you’re making something quick that could benefit from . . . → Read More: How to Make a Use-Your-CSA Salad]]>

This salad normally wouldn’t be worth a post, but I’m posting it for two reasons. The first is that it’s a part of my “Husband Alone with the CSA” series and needs to be included to show how I used everything up (including the lettuces). The second reason is because of a fundamentally more important lesson: always pre-roast your beets!

I can’t emphasize that enough. When you’re making something quick that could benefit from roasted beets (and what doesn’t?), encountering raw beets in your fridge is a major drag. 95% of the time our use of beets calls for them to be foil-roasted anyway, so my M.O. is just to roast them as soon as possible, when you’re not hungry but you’ll be near the oven (at least in the living room) for 90 minutes. They’ll store for a few weeks and you can toss them into whatever you want.

I made this salad for lunch three times over the course of the week to use up the leftover tomatoes, sweet red peppers, and lettuces. It was delicious and quick and easy, but without the beets it would have been boring.

Big CSA Salad

Makes 1 big serving, 2 normal servings, or 4 sides

Amount	Ingredient	Preparation	Notes
Some	Lettuces	Torn into bite-sized pieces	Whatever you have, as much as you want (you can even through in some raw kale if you’re so inclined)
1	Ripe tomato	Chopped
1	Sweet pepper	Chopped	Red, yellow, orange, whatever… green in a pinch
1	Roasted beet	Sliced into 0.5 inch quarter-rounds	See below
1/3 part	Olive oil
1/3 part	Balsamic vinegar		Spring for the real stuff, not the chemical kind
1/3 part	Apple cider vinegar		We made our own, natch !
1 TBsp	Dijon mustard	I make it a very heaping TBsp
Some	Black pepper	Freshly ground
A pinch	Kosher salt

Directions

1. Roast your beets. DO THIS IN ADVANCE! Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. On each beet, chop off the base of the greens stalk, and chop off the tendril at the tip (if there is one). Scrub off any dirt. Wrap each beet individually in foil. Cover a sheet pan with foil. Place the foiled beets on the pan and bake.

   If there are any small beets (~ golf balls) remove them after 60 minutes. For anything up to the size of a softball, bake for 90 minutes. For anything bigger, you’re on you own. Take it to a state fair.

   Let the beets cool until you can handle the foil, then unwrap them. Let them cool completely and, with a paper towel in each hand, palm the opposing sides and twist the skin off. If they are cooked enough, the skin should come off easily (although maybe not all in one perfect shot). Store the peeled beets whole in a tupperware in the fridge until you are ready to use the.

   Oh, be sure to wash your hands thoroughly before touching anything, and wash your hands between each beet if you want to make your hand-washing a little easier.

2. Prep (tear / chop) the rest of the vegetables, and slice the beets for the salad.
3. Mix the dressing, using about the same amount of each of the three liquids until you get to your desired amount of dressing. Add the dijon and mix / whisk / shake. I don’t measure. I use an old spice shaker, which nets me about enough dressing for two salads of the size pictured. Salt and pepper the salad, add the dressing, and toss. The beets juice and the dressing will mix into a nice sweet purple dressing with a kick, but one that stains badly, so eat carefully!



]]> http://eatlocal365.com/2012/09/29/how-to-make-a-use-your-csa-salad/feed/ 0 http://eatlocal365.com/2012/04/20/holy-cow-we-made-vinegar/ http://eatlocal365.com/2012/04/20/holy-cow-we-made-vinegar/#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:27:36 +0000 Lindsay http://eatlocal365.com/?p=5340 Apple cider vinegar! From cores we kept in the freezer that normal people throw away!!

I did NOT expect this to work out. It had been sitting in a crock on the kitchen floor for months, but last night Erik gave me the serious face and said “we’re decanting this now, young lady”. OK, he didn’t really say the “young lady” bit, but he should have. I had been studiously avoiding his less pointed . . . → Read More: Holy Cow! We Made Vinegar!]]> Apple cider vinegar! From cores we kept in the freezer that normal people throw away!!

I did NOT expect this to work out. It had been sitting in a crock on the kitchen floor for months, but last night Erik gave me the serious face and said “we’re decanting this now, young lady”. OK, he didn’t really say the “young lady” bit, but he should have. I had been studiously avoiding his less pointed hints for weeks, because I didn’t want to face a container of moldy apple juice. Yeah, this is standard 401(k) behavior…thinking about it too much makes me anxious, so I just pretend it doesn’t exist. Really adult of me, right? Luckily, Erik was the mature one and made me taste it. Success!!

We got almost 3 quarts of apple cider vinegar from apple cores and peels and very little work! I won’t repost Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking’s directions for homemade apple scrap vinegar here, but I will say that we ignored the apple scraps for at least two weeks (rather than the recommended one) before straining and then let the liquid ferment for a couple of months (instead of two to three weeks) before bottling. Just to give you an idea of our recklessness, we started the whole process on New Year’s Eve. It’s April 20th, people! That’s some forgiving fermentation.

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