Beet Green Salad with a Maple-Balsamic Dressing

This salad "recipe" (I know, it's just a salad) is taken from the Union Street Kitchen Witch blog.  Jenny Osburn, the owner of the Union Street Cafe in Berwick, Nova Scotia is a friend of a friend.  I have never had the opportunity to meet Jenny, but had the pleasure of eating many of her mom Anna's Slippery Jack pickles (and rummaging through her bookshop, oh so awesome!).

The recipe combines so many of my favourite tastes: thinly sliced red onions, feta cheese, nuts, dried fruit and fresh greens!

The original recipe (A Really Delicious Swiss Chard Salad) is perfect as it is, but naturally, I've had to adjust based on ingredients.  My greenhouse beet greens are far superior to my swiss chard at present, so I don't really have a choice.  And as much as I prefer raspberries to strawberries, I can't bring myself to buy them when I have bowls of strawberries that need to be used.  Having said that, I can't think of too many things as spectacular as the vibrant red of a freshly picked, ripe strawberry against the backdrop of garden greens.



So the recipe below is adjusted for those ingredients, otherwise exactly as shown on Jenny's blog.

Salad:
2-3 bunches of beet greens, washed and cut into ribbons
1/2 cup crumbled Feta
1/4 cup chopped Almonds
1/2 cup slivered Red Onion
A big handful of Strawberries
1/4 cup dried Cranberries



Top the beet greens with the feta, almonds, red onion, strawberries and dried cranberries.  Drizzle with dressing just before serving and toss gently.

Dressing:
1/4 cup Maple Syrup
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
1 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Dijon Mustard
1 clove Garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
Combine all ingredients in a lidded jar and shake to mix.

Nice beet greens

Nice swiss chard, but too small

First batch of swiss chard: pathetic!