Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Four ways to eat an apple and raw beet salad

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I had a bundle of beets and an abundance of Honeycrisp apples from the farmer's market, and decided to chop 'em up and put them together with a splash of lemon juice and a little salt to make a healthy raw beet and apple salad. I loved the earthy sweetness of the raw beets paired with the simple, tart sweetness of the apples, but the problem was, three large beets and three large apples equals one damn enormous bowl of salad. I was eating the stuff for days. So here are some of the combinations I came up with:
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Topped with cashews and cilantro, alongside toast;
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On jalapeno-cheddar bread, with some cream cheese;
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In a tortilla with peanut butter (a surprisingly awesome pairing);
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On a piece of toast spread with pate, after adding chopped cabbage into the mix.

In the end, I loved the flavor of the salad, but the texture was a little unwieldy. I thought the beets would soften and wilt after marination, but they never did. Next time I'll try grating the apples and beets instead of cutting them into matchsticks.
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Beet greens, by the way, should definitely not be tossed. I sauteed the chopped greens with a little salt in some olive oil, and ate them on top of rice with a fried egg. The greens are as tender as spinach and taste just a little earthier.

4 comments:

  1. i love me some beet greens! how did you grate all that stuff? mandoline? very interesting use of PB btw. makes sense, sorta like a SE asian salad wrap.

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  2. I cut them up by hand, man! Just a knife and me. Uhh...my hands were stained red for hours afterward. Beet lovers beware.

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  3. Yum! I just got a big beet bunch from the market, and I'll definitely give some of these options a try. Beets and peanut butter?? It sounds so crazy that it just might work.....

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  4. Kirby, it does work! To me it was like eating apples with peanut butter, they're both crisp and sweet after all.

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