LiveSTRONG With A Taste Of Yellow: Golden Beet Salad

This is my entry for my friend Barbara's LiveSTRONG recipe/photo competition in support of fighting cancer. Note that I did not include one of the yellow bands in my photo, but I still think it could grace the pages of Saveur.

So what yellow product to use? I initially was planning something mustard-based, but then I lucked out and found some golden beets at Fresh Market. A note to my fellow Memphians: if I find golden beets anywhere in the city, I'm liable to buy several bunches. Not trying to deprive anyone of this delicacy, but when an obscure craving meets limited supply, it's every man for himself. My hope is that by clearing out the stock, it will encourage the greengrocers to purchase more in the future.

In honor of the fact that Barbara writes from Australia (recently moved from New Zealand), for the rest of this post I'll use the antipodean term beetroot.

Here's the ingredients in the salad:

• two golden beetroot, roasted for an hour, peeled and sliced
  
• one navel orange, peeled, trimmed, and sliced
  
• slivered almonds, toasted in a pan
  
• thin strips of firm goat cheese
  
• sliced shallot rings
  
• Dijon mustard/balsamic vinaigrette
  
• spring mix/mesclun as desired

Do you really need instructions on how to put together a salad? Throw it on a plate and gobble down. However, if you put it on a square white plate and make it look pretty, then you can charge $10 for it and call it "beetroot carpaccio", though on this blog we avoid pseudotrophes.

This was one delicious salad if I say so myself. Even The Girlfriend loved it despite the fact that she doesn't like beets. (Golden beets have a milder flavor and don't stain the hell out of your counters and cutting boards.) Therein lies a funny story: The Girlfriend was returning home from a trip and her flight was delayed an hour, meaning that I did a bit of shopping. During said excursion I picked up the golden beets. I'm serious: I never pass these up. So when I finally met her at the airport, instead of a bouquet of flowers I had a bag of slightly muddy beets. Two days later with a successful dinner, all was forgiven.