Two Summer Salads

There's so much great produce around right now that I couldn't resist making not one, but two gorgeous salads for last night's dinner.

My friend Maggie gave me a bag full of cucumbers (this is what people do with cucumbers, right? There's no ducking it.) Her farmer neighbor had given them to her, since they were too big to sell at the market. She suspected maybe they'd be seedy. I peeled a couple of them, and cut them open and scooped out the seeds.  With some sliced red onion, cherry tomatoes and dill from our garden, olive oil, rice wine vinegar and salt and pepper, I thought they tasted just fine. 

This beet salad had me up during the night thinking about it. In a good way, of course.

It's roasted beets with diced red onion and crumbled bacon over steamed beet greens with vinaigrette. You can find the recipe here. 

We ate the salads with breaded pork chops and roasted red potatoes. Pretty much stuffed ourselves silly. 

Not now kids, I'm photographing the beets

Yesterday I made a layer cake. You may be thinking, wow, who bakes when it's 90 degrees out? And that's exactly what I was thinking. Especially while I was icing the cake, and my cream cheese frosting was sliding down the side.

The farm boxes are getting more colorful. And finally: beets.

I had never tasted a fresh beet until a couple of years ago. I fell in love. Usually I roast the beets, then slice them and toss them with a vinaigrette and serve over salad greens with goat cheese. Last year I made up a hot/cold salad which used all of the above, plus sauteed beet greens and some toasted walnuts. Delicious.

But I wondered. What else can be done with beets? Are there new beet frontiers? My Internet search turned up loads of recipes, including lots of cakes. Red velvet and chocolate seem to be the most popular, but I wanted something a bit less heavy. I found this Beet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from Cooking Light.

I considered following in the footsteps of Southern church ladies everywhere and making this a sheet cake, but decided I should try the recipe as written before making any changes. So I followed it to the letter. Even the part where they said to use wax paper in the bottom of the pan; normally a step I would ignore. The batter was this amazing (or amazingly weird, depending on your feelings about beets) pink.

It came out of the oven looking like a regular cake though. Golden with red beet flecks. Very moist, and not too sweet. Me and layer cakes are not on such great terms. Mine are always lopsided, and I never get enough frosting in between the layers. But the idea of a layer cake appeals to me, so I'll keep trying.

I think next time I'll make cupcakes instead, and maybe add a little goat cheese to the cream cheese frosting.