Beet, Blue cheese Salad

Every once in a while I will pick up a really lovely bit of soft french blue cheese… I love it so much. I spread it on toast or crackers, this week I decide to sneak a bit into a salad with one of my other favorite things beets! The great thing about this salad is you can change it to your preferences… if you don’t love blue cheese, throw a little feta in instead. Don’t have pine nuts? Toast up some other nut, no big deal. Wanna use spinach or butter leaf instead of the spicy arugula… go for it! The Beets and dressing are a must! Haha

Ingredients:

one container of arugula

6 beets (less if they are large)

1/2 cup pine nuts

1/4 cup blue cheese

-dressing-

1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tbs white wine vinegar

1 Tbs dijon mustard

2 tsp finely chopped garlic

1/2 tsp dried thyme

Leaves from 1 rosemary sprig, minced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400

1) Scrub and trim beets. Drizzle with olive oil and wrap each beet in tinfoil. Place wrapped beets in the oven and cook for 40+ min or until the beets are tender. The time with differ with the size of beet. When tender… remove from foil and let them cook completely. Peel off the skin, and cut into bitesized wedges.

2) Warm up a small frying pan on med high heat. Place pine nuts in pan shaking pan regularly to prevent burning. When pine nuts are nice and golden… remove from heat.

3) To make dressing, place all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until well blended. Or put everything in a small jar and shake, shake, shake!

4)To assemble the salad, in a large bowl add the arugula. Top the greens with beets, pine nuts and then dollop (for soft blue cheese) or sprinkle (normal blue cheese) over the top and then drizzle on the dressing. Be carful not to over dress the salad, there are a lot of flavorful elements… and too much dressing will overwhelm the salad. Enjoy!