Shopping in the new & improved Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market Saturday I came across these Chioggia beets. I picked up some local organic curly spinach for a winter salad.
After roasting them at 350 for 30 minutes in a tightly covered pan with some water, we sliced them up into quarters and had a pleasant surprise. The Chioggia is also known and the Candystripe or Bulls Eye beet, shown here.
We also put some walnuts in the oven to roast while the beets were doing their thing - a perfect bit of crunch to go with the salad.
We had some standard chevre, which I formed into cherry-sized balls and rolled in smoked paprika. I placed them in a microwave for about 30-40 seconds to just loosen up a bit before placing them atop the salad.
The spinach was simply dressed in a sherry vinaigrette, while the beets were left naked so that we could appreciate their sweet, earth chew - why mess with perfection. The sweet beets, tangy dressing, smoky heat of the paprika and the warm, cheesy goat cheese crumbles ended up being a balanced winter salad...all the better that many of the ingredients were locally sourced thanks to Fair Food Farmstand.
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