Author Notes: As a child, I never had beets at home (my father claimed allergies — a claim about which I remain highly skeptical), but I loved beets, and I always got them in the salad bar of my favorite restaurant. My childhood salads never varied — they always had croutons, green onions, bacon bits and blue cheese dressing with the beets. As an adult, I encountered Patzaria, the Greek yogurt-based beet salad, and I decided to combine the flavors of my childhood salad bar with the Greek appetizer in this recipe. The result is salty, sweet, smoky and entirely addictive — it makes a great and unexpected hors d’oeuvre. —Savour
Serves: 3-4
Ingredients
-
2
medium beets
-
1
cup nonfat Greek style yogurt
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1.5
ounces blue cheese, finely crumbled
-
2
pieces bacon
-
1
tablespoon chives, finely minced
-
3
pieces pita bread, lightly toasted
Directions
- Scrub the beets, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, enclose in a foil packet and roast at 350 degrees for 40 minutes to an hour, or until tender. Let cool and chop into a fine dice.
- Fry the bacon until crisp. Let cool, and chop finely.
- Combine the yogurt and the blue cheese in a small bowl and mash with a fork until the cheese in incorporated into the yogurt.
- Add the chopped beets, bacon and the chives. Mix thoroughly until the entire mixture is a rather alarming magenta hue (this actually helps convince 3 year old girls to eat it, believe it or not). The mixture may be covered and stored in the refrigerator right away, or eaten immediately.
- Serve with toasted pita triangles. Enjoy.