What is for dinner tonight?

This is what we had for dinner the other night.  My daughter and I were the only ones home and something simple, tasty and vegetarian would do.  If the guys had been home, they would  have thought we were trying to starve them, especially my son.  He is all about protein.

We were hungry, so we foraged.  There is just no better way to say it.  We foraged through the frig, the pantry, and the tomato garden.  I had some nice looking beets that I bought from the grocery store.  I had great success with beets that I had roasted previously that I had gotten from the farmers market.  That night we were having wine, cheese, olive oil and a light salad.  My daughter was out that evening and didn't get to participate but had some left over beets the next day and proclaimed love for them.  So for her, I will try to recreate that salad we had that night minus the blood orange infused olive oil which sadly went home with the owner.  Who knew olive oils were infused with blood orange.  I must be living in a bubble.

 Beets were going to be the main component for the salad so this is how I prepared them for roasting.

The oven was preheated to 400 degrees.  I scrubbed the beets very well (the skin actually came off in some places) and sliced them.  Placed the sliced beets on a foiled lined pan coated with cooking spray in domino fashion and then added salt, pepper and olive oil.  (Beets are usually roasted whole but I wanted them to cook quicker so I tried slicing them).

The beets from the farmers market had only taken about 40 minutes to cook but these took close to an hour and they did not have the same sweetness as the first batch.  So I was a little disappointed, but they were still really good.

I mixed up a raspberry vinigarette that consisted of 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, 1/2 of a small minced shallot (about a heaping teaspoon), some raspberry vinegar that is so good you could drink it by itself (really, I am not kidding), and some olive oil.  I purchased the olive oil and vinegar from A Taste of Olive that has a variety of olive oils, regional and infused, and 18 year old balsamic vinegar that seems sweet than other balsamic vinegars.  They had an abundance of regular and white balsamics and I was amazed at the flavorings.  Check it out for yourself, it is mind boggling.  Try going into an olive oil store and tasting olive oil without bread from a little shot cup.  It is not as easy as it sounds, at least not for me.

I tossed in some baby romaine, chopped up beets (I did not peel them like most recipes recommend and no one noticed either time), toasted chopped walnuts, crumbled goat cheese and tossed it all together.  Then at the last minute my daughter and I decided to toss in some blueberries we had.  I couldn't have been more pleased with the results.  It seemed like the perfect mix of tangy and sweet and no conflicting flavors.  It was also healthy and completely delicious.  We sat out on our deck on a beautiful evening watching the sunset and eating our concoction that is our dinner.   It wasn't fancy, maybe I could have worked on a better presentation but at the time it was perfect.

 I enjoyed this combination so much that I wanted to share it.  I really can get into a good salad and this was one of those times. It worked and I want to celebrate it.