Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese (salad & appetizer)

Do you want to be a chef yourself?! Do you want to get compliments from your friends “wow I felt like eating in the restaurant”, then prepare Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese. It has been a quite while, that i wanted to share with you also some healthy and as well fancy recipes! Even-though you might not think of beets as very fancy vegetable, I will try to show you otherwise. This amazing red power of beets will blown you away! !

Did you know, that beets contain valuable nutrients, which can helps fight cancer, inflammation, lower blood pressure and support detoxification. It strengthen you immune system, brain and bone health. By adding raw or cooked beets in your vegetable juices or salads will make positive impact on your health.

There’s many sorts and even colors of beets. You can even find beets with different color of leaves. The most common color, which you will find in your local grocery store or market is red and yellow. You might find also white beets, which has the highest concentration of sugar, comparing to red or yellow beets.

Beets can be eaten raw, cooked, roasted or pickled. You can add them to your salads, to the smoothies, shakes or use it as a side dish or as an appetizer. Me, personally, I prefer the roasted version, it gives to the beet earthy and sweet roast taste. I will be using in this recipe red and yellow beets, because of it’s nice rich color and also these types of beets are the easiest to find on the market. For this recipe, you will need 4 medium beets, kosher salt, pepper, aluminium foil, goat cheese (creamy or crumble), arugula, pine nuts, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Preparation time is around 20 minutes Baking time: 1hr and 30min. Difficulty: easy (because all the ingredients are already cooked or prepared, except the beets.)

Serves: 4 persons.

BEET APPETIZER WITH GOAT CHEESE AND ARUGULA

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 medium beets
• aluminium foil
• kosher salt
• pepper
• balsamic vinegar ( few droppes)
• 1 Tbs olive oil (to drizzle over the beets)
• 100 g goat cheese
• 50 ml heavy cream whipped
• 4 handful of arugula salad
• 50 g pine nuts or walnuts (migh be roasted)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut and remove the roots and leaves from the beets, wash it and place on pre-cut aluminium foils (big enough to pack and cover the beets).
2. Season the beets with salt (dash of a salt on each beet), pack in the aluminium foil and place in the preheated oven on 350F/177C and bake for 1 hr and 30 minutes.
3. In the meanwhile you can prepare the goat cheese spread. Depending on the consistency (thick or creamy) of goat cheese, you decide how much you will need of heavy cream. We are trying to make spreadible cream cheese.  Whip the heavy cream until soft peaks forms. And slowly add spoon by spoon,the whipped cream into the goat cheese, until you get smooth easy spreadible consistency.
4. Cut the fresh herbs and mix together with the goat cheese spread.
5. Now, let cool the beets for 20 minutes and with a help of aluminium foil, remove the skin. The skin will go very easy off. Make sure you are wearing darker clothes when handling the beets, they color a lot.
6. Cut the beets in desired shape; circles, quarters, squares…
7. Take your plate and spread generous spoon of goat cheese spread on a plate, place your beets around the spread and garnish arugula salad on side. With a help of syringe sprinkle first dots of olive oil, then add small dots of balsamic vinegar. If you will do it other way around, your vinegar will drip down the plate. It is actually the consistency of olive oil, which will hold and create a nice shape of a drop on your plate.

BEET SALAD WITH GOAT CHEESE AND ARUGULA

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 medium beets
• aluminium foil
• kosher salt
• pepper
• 1 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tbs olive oil
• 300 g goat cheese
• 150 g of arugula salad
• 100 g pine nuts or walnuts (migh be roasted)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Scroll up to see the instructions of previous recipe, how to bake the beets.
2. In a medium bowl, wash arugula salad and pour over olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mix well but gentle.
3. Place you salad on a nice plate and place the pieces of beets on the salad, sprinkle with crumbled goat cheese and pine nuts or walnuts.

Bon Appetit! Enjoy it!