The Quail and Olive Citrus Beet Salad, A Book Review, and the Weekly Menu

 I took the Angel Face to California in March.  We had a great time visiting with my brother and his family, going to the beaches, and traveling the Pacific Coast Highway.  On our way back to the San Francisco Airport, we stopped in Monterey for a night to visit with my friend, Camilla.

We met at The Quail and Olive, owned by Cam's friend, Analeise.  It is a lovely store, and I excitedly picked out some products to ship home.  

Beetroot Smoothie #CooktheBooks

This colorful, pretty smoothie is packed with antioxidants.  It is a great pick-me-up after a fall hike or as a post-workout treat.

I was inspired to make this drink while reading our Cook the Books October/November selection......

Roasted Beet and Tomato Salad #FallFlavors

Roasted Beets, Vine-Ripened Tomatoes, Freshly-Picked Basil, and Tangy Feta Cheese.  If there is any culinary season better than Fall, I have yet to discover it......

Look at how gorgeous and colorful all those Fall Flavors are......

Fresh Peach and Blueberry Salad with Roasted Beets #SundayFunday

Tender Baby Greens, topped with Fresh Peaches, Plump Blueberries, Roasted Beets, Creamy Feta and Crisp Walnuts dressed in a Balsamic Vinaigrette.

The Sunday Funday Bloggers are sharing recipes with Peaches today.....

Turkey Hollow Beet Hummus #MoviesandMunchies

I was doing a search on my television for Thanksgiving Movies and came across Jim Henson's Turkey Hollow which evidently was a made for TV movie that was shown on Lifetime in 2015.  

I was not familiar with this movie at all but I do love the Muppets and their movies are always fun so I decided to see if the members of our Movies and Munchies group wanted to join me in watching it for November.

Off the Menu Round-up #MoviesandMunchies

March has come to a close and so has our Off the Menu Movies and Munchies event.  I think for the most part the group agreed that this was a fun and mindless little rom com.  I know that they all agreed that there was tons of food inspiration to be had.  

Sweet Potato and Beet Hash #MoviesandMunchies

Colorful and nutritious this dish is a delight for the stomach and the eyes.  I was inspired to create this dish after watching the film "Off the Menu".

Sweet potato, beet, poblano pepper hash is served up beautifully golden and crisp.  This would make a perfect side dish to any meal however I served it topped with a perfectly fried egg on Ash Wednesday when we abstain from meat.

Beet Bread #BreadBakers

This gorgeous bread tastes just as good as it looks.  It is perfect with a bowl of soup or for use when making a sandwich.  

Welcome to Bread Bakers......

Grillled Beets with Caramelized Citrus Drizzle #FoodnFlix

This wonderful platter of golden and red baby beets is drizzled with citrus that has been caramelized on the grill, olive oil, sea salt and freshly cracked pepper. 

 I was inspired to make this salad after watching the movie "Words on Bathroom Walls".........

Roasted Beet Salad #SundayFunday

Beets and a full head of garlic, roasted and then quickly pickled before being tossed with the beet greens, pecans and red onion.  I served this as part of a  Mezze platter, a Lebanese appetizer course served before the main meal.

The Sunday Funday Bloggers are sharing Beetroot Recipes today......

Bloody Night Soup (Roasted Beet Soup) #SoupSaturdaySwappers

 This soup made with roasted beets is not only delicious it is also a great Spooky Soup to warm you up on a chilly Halloween night....

We are sharing Spooky Soups to celebrate Halloween with the Soup Saturday Swappers.......

Mixed Greens with Roasted Golden Beets and Lemon Vinaigrette #ImprovCookingChallenge

This wonderful salad of mixed baby greens tossed with a lemon vinaigrette and topped with roasted golden beets and crumbled feta cheese is a delicious way to celebrate spring.

We are serving up lettuce and lemons this month over at the Improv Cooking Challenge.....

Israeli Veggie Skewers #FarmersMarketWeek

Baby potatoes, eggplant, tomato, onion and beets grilled until tender and charred and then drizzled with a lemon, garlic and rosemary dressing.

This is the final day of Farmer's Market Week.......

Roasted Beets and Turnips #FoodnFlix #LitHappens

Turnips are often overlooked as a stand alone vegetable. Roasted Turnips are wonderfully delicious.  In this dish I paired them with Roasted Beets, both of which were wrapped in foil and roasted on the grill for a summertime side dish.

I was inspired to make this dish after reading and watching The Guernsey Literary Guild and Potato Peel Pie Society......

Roasted Beet and Citrus Salad #HolidaySideDishes

This delicious salad combines the earthiness of the beets with the bright acidity of the citrus for a perfect, seasonal side this Holiday season.

Please join the Festive Foodies as we share our favorite Holiday Side Dishes........

Apple Fennel and Beet Salad #AppleWeek

This post is sponsored on behalf of #appleweek. Our generous sponsors, Swiss Diamond, Envy Apples, Imperial Sugar, Nordic Ware, Rodelle Vanilla, Flahavan's Irish Oatmeal, Nairn's and The Spice House have provided us with products for recipe creation and a giveaway for our readers. As always, all opinions are my own.

All the wonderful flavors of Fall tossed together in a salad that makes a perfect side dish for your favorite roast pork, turkey or chicken recipe.

Today is the final Day of Apple Week.  You don't want to miss it.........

Beet Pickled Eggs #KitchenMatrixCookingProject

These pickled eggs are not only delicious but are also very pretty having been pickled along with the beets.

They are perfect as a snack, as part of a meal or as an appetizer....

Beet Slaw #KitchenMatrixCookingProject

Welcome to the 2nd edition of the Kitchen Matrix Cooking Project.  A few of us, under the direction of Cam from Culinary Adventures with Camilla, are cooking our way through Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix cookbook this year.

We kicked it off last week with appetizers, specifically Party Dips.  I shared my take on Bittman's Potted Shrimp that I shared during a Christmas Cocktail Party.

The dish I am sharing with you today, was also served at a Christmas party.  My last of the year, when we celebrated Little Christmas or Epiphany with our family that lives in Traverse City, about 5 hrs. north of us.

Our theme for today was Raw Beets.  Bittman shared a recipe for a Borscht Salad.  My niece, great niece, Frank and I are beet lovers so I knew it would be a welcome addition to the meal.  

This is more of a slaw type salad.  I loved the dill flavoring and the hard boiled egg but thought it needed a little more oomph.  So I added more sour cream and some chopped bacon to the leftovers and took it to Roz and Ron's when we went to celebrate Little Christmas at their house on Sunday.  The bacon added the oomph for which I was searching.

As Frank said when I asked him what he thought of the idea of adding bacon...."Everything is better with Bacon in it".  I am adding the crumbled bacon addition to the recipe below.  Feel free to add it, or not, as the mood strikes.  This entire cookbook is all about taking a basic recipe and making it your own.

You will find how the others used Raw Beets in the links below this recipe.  Enjoy. 

Beet Slaw

adapted from Kitchen Matrix

3 small beets, peeled 

2 c. shredded cabbage

1 egg, hard boiled

5 strips bacon, cooked crisp and cut into small dice

1/3 c. sour cream

2 T. fresh dill fronds, minced

Cut the beets into chunks and place into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until finely grated. (You can use any method you like for grating but this is the easiest I had found and it keeps your fingers from turning red.)

Place the beets in a large bowl with the cabbage. Chop the egg and add to the bowl along with the bacon bits.  Toss all ingredients together.  Add the sour cream and the dill weed. Fold into the ingredients until well coated.  Print Recipe

Here is what the others created with Raw Beets

An InLinkz Link-up

Baby Beet Salad with a Creamy Coffee Dressing #FabulousFallBounty #CrazyIngredientChallenge

Remember what I was saying about providence a couple of days ago?  Well, it is smiling down upon me again today.

This is Day 3 of Fabulous Fall Bounty, hosted by Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla and sponsored by Melissa's Produce, Le Creuset and Silpat.  These companies sent a dozen bloggers products to use in the creation of recipes for this event.  I received no monetary compensation and all opinions are my own.

One of the things I received, in this huge box from Melissa's, was peeled and steamed baby beets.  These are wonderful to have in the refrigerator.  Especially, if like me, you LOVE beets.  They are so yummy and delicious but they do take a while to prepare.  Having these precooked and sealed beets on hand makes life much easier.

You can imagine how thrilled I was when the poll for our Crazy Ingredient Challenge was complete and beets was one of the winning ingredients.  Providence.

Each month, our host, Kelly of Passion Kneaded, gives us 2 subsets of 4 ingredients.  We vote on which ingredients we want from each subset and when the tally comes in we are told which ingredients we must include in a recipe created for the event.

It is a lot of fun and, if you enjoy a challenge, we would love to have you join us.  Just put a comment below or on any of the recipe links for CIC and let us know.

The second ingredient this month? Coffee.... that kinda set me back a bit.  My first thought was a coffee flavored smoothie.  I use beets in my smoothies quite often.  I actually played around with the idea of making a beet and coffee ice cream too.  

It seemed as if each idea I had included a creaminess of some sort.  This led me to think about a creamy salad dressing.  I love adding beets to my salads and I thought that the bitterness of a creamy coffee dressing, drizzled on a salad that was sweetened, naturally, with beets would work.

Yes, those are some beautiful beef filet steaks that you see in the background.  This salad was going to be the first course of a Surf and Turf dinner that I was serving for company so I wanted it to be delicious.

And it was.  I kept it very simple.  Mixed greens, sliced beets and a drizzle of creamy coffee dressing.  It was surprisingly tasty and the perfect salad to serve when the rest of the meal is going to be rich and decadent.  Bitter is one of my favorite tastes.  I know it is not for everybody so I did add a little honey to the dressing to cut the bitterness just a bit while still leaving enough that it made you stop and take notice that this was not your ordinary salad dressing.

Baby Beet Salad with a Creamy Coffee Dressing

1 baby beet per person, steamed, peeled and cut into slices

2 handfuls of mixed greens, per person

1 (6 oz) carton plain Greek yogurt

2 T. brewed coffee

1 t. honey

salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together the yogurt, coffee, honey, salt and pepper.  Taste and adjust sweetness and seasonings as desired.

Chill a salad plate for each person.  Place 2 handfuls of salad greens on each plate.  Top with sliced beets and drizzle with dressing. Print Recipe

More Fabulous Fall Bounty

An InLinkz Link-up

More Beet and Coffee Creations

An InLinkz Link-up

Say Yay for Beaujolais #FrenchWinophiles

Welcome to an early edition of The French Winophiles.  We normally post on the third Saturday of each month, followed by a twitter chat.  We are still chatting on Saturday and would love to have you join us at 11 AM ET. You will find us by using hashtag #Winophiles.  This month we will also be using the hashtag #Beaujolais.

So why are we posting early this month?  Beaujolais is releasing their 2017 harvest today!  Each year the current harvest of Beaujolais wines are released on the third Thursday and it has become a great marketing tool for them.  You can learn more about Beaujolais wines and this event by reading this invitation post written by Jeff of Food Wine Click, who is hosting this month.

Disclosure: I received free samples of wine for the purposes of this and future posts.  All opinions and ideas are strictly my own.  I received no monetary compensation for the writing of this post.

This year, on of our members, Lynn of Savor the Harvest, was able to procure samples of four different Beaujolais wines for our group to try;  Nature Terra Vitis from Vignerons de Bel Air, Brouilly from Domaine de Briante, Morgan Côte du Py from Domaines Piron and Cote de Brouilly Les Garances from Domaine Baron de L'Ecluse.

You can see what the others have to say about this wine in their individual posts:

• Jill from L’Occasion shares “No Sleep ’til Beaujolais: The French Wine That’s Keeping Us Up All Night“ 
• Martin from Enofylz writes “Ready To Elevate Your Beaujolais Game? Go Beyond Nouveau!” 
• Lynn from Savor the Harvest writes “Beaujolais Beyond Nouveau” 
• Rob from Odd Bacchus shares “Beaujolais Reassessed“ 
• Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm writes “Say Yay for Beaujolais“ 
• Jane from Always Ravenous shares “Beaujolais Wine: A Foodie’s Dream” 
• Nicole from Somms Table writes “Cooking to the Wine: Stephane Aviron Cru Beaujolais with Pork Tenderloin While Jumping Life Hurdles“ 
• Lauren from The Swirling Dervish shares “Thanksgiving for Two: Mushroom-Stuffed Pork Loin Paired with Beaujolais Cru” 
• Jeff from Food Wine Click! shares “Tasting the Beaujolais Pyramid over Dinner”
• Gwendolyn from Wine Predator asks "Do you know the way to Beaujolais?"  Followed up by "We do! Part 2 with Coq a Vin!"
• Liz from What's in that Bottle invites us to "Discover Real Beaujolais"
• Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla tells us about her "Top of the Central Coast; My Beaujolais Pairing Dinner"
• Michelle from Rockin Red Blog writes "Exploring Cru Beaujolais with #Winophiles".
• David from Cooking Chat shares "Food-Friendly Red Wine from Beaujolais".

The recipe I chose to showcase this wonderful wine made with primarily Gamay grapes is a rustic dish from Israel called Shakshuka.

Shakshuka is a dish of eggs poached in tomatoes and vegetables.  Often served for breakfast, I decided to enjoy it for brinner and pair it with the bottle of Côte du Py.  You can find versions of this dish in nearly every culture. This dish in France is spelled Chakchouka. I shared the Italian version, Uovo al Piatta con Pomodori, last Easter season.

I found this recipe by Celeste of The True Spoon on a website called Honest Cooking. It appealed to me because Celeste had paired it with Beaujolais when she served it.  I also was thrilled with the addition of beets to the recipe.

I had recently received a wonderful box of produce for our #FabulousFallBounty event that starts in just two days.  One of the items included in this box were some steamed and peeled baby beets.  Perfect for this recipe.

The most interesting thing about this pairing was the difference in my tasting as compared to Frank's tasting.  I took a sip of the wine and was please with how light and smooth I found it.  I thought that it was the perfect wine for this rustic dinner.

Frank also enjoyed the pairing but after he took a couple of sips of the wine he said "Wow, this is really a chalky wine".  We, more I than he, enjoy chalky wines.  I like when you take a sip of wine and it is so dry that your mouth feels like you just licked some chalk.  But I was surprised when Frank said this.  I didn't find the wine that dry at all.  It was not sweet. It was very fruity.  But it did not leave that chalky feel in my mouth as it did in his.  This just goes to show that tasting is in the buds of the beholder.  We should never judge a wine on someone else's review.  We all have our own palates and a wine that I love may not be the wine you love and vice versa.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and pairing that I am sharing with you today.  Stay tuned for further Beaujolais pairing from me and the other members of The French Winophiles.  You can find our posts on most social media platforms by following #gogamaygo and #lovebeaujolais.  Please join us for our chat this #Winophile chat Saturday morning at 11 ET when we discuss all of our #Beaujolais pairings.

Beet Shakshuka
adapted from The True Spoon

8 oz. baby beets, steamed, peeled and chopped
8 oz. fingerling potatoes, cut into bite size slices
3 T. garlic infused olive oil
1/2 red onion, coarsely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1/4 t. cumin
1/4 t. caraway seeds
3-4 eggs

Place the potatoes and onion in a cast iron skillet.  Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss to coat.  Place in a preheated 400* oven for 15 minutes.  Add the beets to the skillet. Stir, flipping the potatoes to allow even browning and return to the oven for 10 minutes.  Stir in the tomato sauce, cumin and caraway seeds.

Pressing down with a spoon create indentations for each egg you are using.  Add an egg into each well, season with salt and pepper and return to the oven for 10-12 minutes, until whites are set and yolks are cooked to desired consistency. Remove from oven and let rest a few minutes before serving.
Print Recipe

Join me on Saturday as I pair the Brouilly with a marvelous French Soup that I prepared for #SoupSaturdaySwappers featuring #FabulousFallBounty.