Last week, we lined our front stoop with pumpkins. We lit candles. The oven did double duty, cooking our food and warming the house. After a few very chilly nights, we turned on the heat (just enough to take the chill out of the air!) and the house was filled with that first-time-the-heat’s-on burning dust smell.
Quickly now, the days are shortening and we’re all getting reacquainted with our hats and jackets.
It’s a good time for roasting vegetables and pairing them with still-thriving fresh ingredients like dark, leafy greens, brassicas, fennel, carrots, turnips, radishes, or herbs. Along those lines, today we have a salad of roasted beets, shaved fennel, handfuls of parsley, and copious amounts of feta.
Beets are simple to cook. They need only be scrubbed, set in a baking dish, covered, and roasted until tender. Once that’s done, the skin comes right off under running water, and then the beets can be trimmed, sliced, and tossed with dressing. It takes time, but not much effort. Your hands will be beet-stained for a bit, but it comes off after a few hand washings.
Beet flavor varies wildly – some sweet, some earthy. Beets harvested after the frost tend to be sweeter, but earthy beets have a place, too. Roasting brings out the sweetness, and once cooked, beets readily absorb the flavor of the dressing. Here, the dressing is assertively lemony with notes of toasted cumin. Along with the beets and dressing, we have shaved fennel tossed with lemon zest and salt, lots of minced parsley, and herby feta.
Beet Salad with Fennel and Parsley
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