Salad of Roasted Beets, Smoked Salmon and Fingerling Potatoes

This is a fantastic salad if you like smoked salmon, roasted beets and soft cooked eggs. If you don't like these things (like most of my family), then dinner is going to be a bit rough...

Ingredients
20 fingerling potatoes
2-4 medium beets
12 oz. smoked salmon
5 soft cooked eggs
2 tablespoons minced shallots
2 tablespoons chipped chives
mixed baby field greens
mustard vinaigrette
Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 375. Trim stems and root ends off of the beets. Place on a large sheet of aluminum foil, drizzle with olive oil, salt & pepper, wrap in the foil and roast until tender (about an hour). Meanwhile, cut the fingerling potatoes in half and simmer in salted water until tender when pierced with a fork. Drain and let cook on a tray.

When beets are done, remove from oven and let cool. When cool enough to handle peel and cut into wedges. Place in a bowl and allow too cool.

Soft-boil the eggs and cut into half and drizzle with olive oil and sea salt.

Make the mustard vinaigrette by placing 1 tablespoon dijon mustard in a bowl. Whisk in 3 tablespoons of champagne vinegar. Slowly drizzle in 1 cup of olive oil while whisking constantly to emulsify. Whisk in 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard.

Add minced shallots to a large bowl. Add potatoes and 2 tablespoons dressing. Sprinkle with sea salt and and ground black pepper. Drizzle beets with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Plate salad by arranging potatoes on large plates, add beets, baby greens, sliced smoked salmon and soft boiled eggs. Sprinkle with chopped chives, salt and pepper and drizzle with remaining dressing.

Love this salad!

Roasted Beets with Feta, Baby Mesclun, and a Beet Glaze

I normally don't like feta cheese, but at our Temecula Farmers Market, there's an old Greek guy there who has the best tasting feta. It is not tangy, but it is very mild and very smooth. I thought that it would go perfect with some roasted beets. (Chessa hates beets so I can't do these too often). The Foxes came over Sunday evening and I was able to get Erin to try this. I love it... Beets are growing on me. I didn't always like them. I just roasted whole beets wrapped individually in foil with a tablespoon of butter for about 2 hours at 350 degrees. They come out very tender with a lot of juice in the foil wrapper. Pour this juice into a small sauce pan and reduce slightly to thicken. Peel the beets and cut them into about 1/3" slices. I cut the slices with a 2" ring mould so that they'd all be the same size. I also cut the feta with the same mould so that it would stack nicely with the beets. When the beet juice (sauce) had reduced slightly, I added a couple table spoons of cold butter and swirled the pan to melt. (this makes for a very smooth rich tasting sauce). Spoon a couple of tablespoons of the sauce onto a plate, stack the beets and feta on top of the sauce and top with some baby greens. (I have these mesclun greens growing in my herb garden. I love them). Sprinkle some of your favorite sea salt, drizzle with a little olive oil and you're done.... You'll love beets done this way.