Warm Heirloom Beetroot Salad – Mmm!

Beets are the perfect food for this time of year.  They are a comforting root vegetable that helps your body and nerves settle in for the oncoming cold weather.  Beets also help clear the bile from your liver. Look for heirloom variety beets in your local produce or farmer’s markets for added color and taste. Add an apple to the mix as apples take the sludge-like bile that the beets have extracted and push it on out the door.  The beet-apple combo is a great one-two punch to help your body stay clean and disease-free.  The recipe below can be made as a vegan salad (no meat or dairy), vegetarian (add goat cheese), or full-on carnivore (add turkey or pork bacon).

THE SALAD:

2 cups roasted beets^*

½ cup canned canelli beans

½ avocado cut into cubes

½ cup croutons

¼ cup pistachios

½ cup grated or shredded raw apple (honey crisp, golden opal, or granny smith are best)

2-3 cups lettuce and greens mix (butter lettuce, romaine, baby kale, spinach)

Toss with vinaigrette of choice

Salt & Pepper to taste

Non veg additions: goat cheese crumbles or turkey or pork bacon crumbles

*To roast the beets set oven to 400˚F. Peel beets and cut them into ½” thick cubes. Add 2-3 Tablespoons of olive oil and mix all around. Spread out your beets on a foil-lined cookie sheet and bake 20-30 minutes until their earthy sweet smell is emanating from your oven. Toss them with the greens that have been washed and dried. The heat of the beets will soften the salad leaves and bring the whole salad together.

I like to mix all of the ingredients except the salad leaves together with the dressing so that the whole vegetable mixture sort of becomes the dressing. In this case I would mix everything together but the beets and then add the warm beets and greens to the rest of the salad mixture.

Serve with warm bread and butter or olive oil.

Enjoy!