Spinach Beet Salad

Hello all, haven't been on for a while, last week was an incredibly busy one and I actually didn't do much interesting cooking. I'm on a very healthy food plan all this week, I had a friend over last weekend and of course we took her to some our favorite Portland eateries, that started the foodie indulgence which continued after she left, with blueberry cobbler a turnip cake (that's right and it was delish). But the the scale pointed at two additional pounds of all that wonderful food that attached itself to me. So, super healthy food week here I come. I'll be posting some of the recipes I use throughout the week. Last night I made a beet/feta/spinach salad. I followed a recipe sort of but I changed it so much that I'm going to just make my own. Hope you like as much as Michael and I did.

Spinach Beet Salad

Ingredients Serves 2

1 3-4 med beets

2 hard boiled eggs

1 C. thinly sliced sweet onion

3 C. baby spinach leaves

4 oz. crumbled feta cheese

1/3 C. walnut pieces

vinaigrette recipe below.

Directions

Boil the beets in water for approximately 12 minutes until tender enough for a fork to go it easily. When done take out to cool and put the two eggs in to hard boil, (you'll get that beautiful red color on the outside of the egg), cook eggs for approximately 15 minutes, then drop then into ice water immediately to cool, the shell will remove easily then. When the beets are cool enough to handle cut off stems and rub your hands over the beets and the skin will come right off, (use rubber gloves if you don't want your hands to get a beautiful pink, however it comes off in an hour or so.) Put eggs and beets in bowl to cool in refrigerator, they need to be cold before you serve the salad.

See you in a couple of days my friends, COOK ON................

Make a basic vinaigrette:

1/4 cup finely diced sweet onion

1 TBS dijon mustard

1 clove garlic, diced & smashed well

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Pepper

1/3 cup olive oil

Add first 7 ingredients, blend then slowly add the olive oil, whisking (or in a blender) until emulsified (or incorporated into dressing) set aside.

Chop or slice the beets. Place beets, spinach, onion, feta, bacon, and walnuts into a large bowl. Drizzle with some of the vinaigrette, and toss to coat. Arrange mixture on 2 serving plates.

Quarter the pickled eggs, and arrange them on top of each salad. Serve with the remaining vinaigrette.