When I was first starting to cook, I would spread out about 100 cookbooks around me, 
looking for a recipe that interested me. And, inevitably, I would find some sort of side dish that sounded delicious, but wasn’t a complete meal in and of itself. Then I would spend more time trying to find a main dish that would go with this side dish I had gotten myself so set on. It would drive me crazy and usually got to be a very complicated process (if you can’t already tell).
So I wouldn’t want to post this side dish and have you all think, ‘This sounds great, but what do I do with it!!’ I’ve made this salad a number of times, and most times I’ve served it with quinoa patties or quinoa cakes from one of my favorite bloggers (and one of the nicest people ever), Marin Mama Cooks. For a lighter dinner or lunch, you could even throw in as much cooked quinoa as you’d like in to the salad itself. Or, if you’re not a big quinoa fan, a couple hard boiled eggs in the salad might work well for lunch or a light dinner too. Chicken cooked your favorite way would make this a complete meal, as would a simple pasta with store-bought pesto (or homemade if you’re feeling like it).
- 1 bunch beets, peeled and chopped in to 1/2” pieces
- 4 carrots, peeled, chopped in to 1/2” slices
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and fresh ground peppper
- Arugula
- Sesame seeds
Orange-miso dressing
- Juice of 1/2 a navel orange
- 1 tablespoon white miso
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1.5 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 1/2 tablespoon honey
Preheat your oven to 425˚. Make sure that your carrots and beets are roughly the same sizes so that they will cook evenly and be finished cooking at the same side.
In a 8 x 8 square baking dish, coat your vegetables with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and season with about 1/2 tsp of kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. Bake the vegetables for roughly 40 minutes, until they are crisp tender. Use a fork to test when your carrots and beets are done, the fork should need a bit of force to pierce the vegetables but it should go all the way through.
While the vegetables cook, combine the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl and whisk well with a fork. Put as much arugula as you’d like in a bowl, I used about 3 big handfuls of arugula and I still had a bit of dressing left over. When the vegetables are done cooking, set them aside for about 5 minutes to cool before putting them in the bowl with your arugula. Add about a tablespoon of sesame seeds over the top of your salad, and pour the dressing over. Toss to coat and enjoy!
Lemons to Lemongrass 