Hello, my name is Jeff: Goat cheese and roasted beet salad

Making this dish was the easy part. We roasted the beets and tossed them with fresh microgreens, thick bacon bits, and pillowy goat cheese. We drizzled with honey and balsamic vinegar. We photographed our dish, scrutinizing what seemed like endless amounts of pictures of the same. damn. thing. We picked our best shots, finalized our recipe, and wrote it all down.

After all of this, we sat in front of our computer screen scratching our heads. This beautiful salad didn't even have a name.

We tried: Beet Salad. Roasted beet salad. Goat cheese and beet salad. Balsamic roasted beet...roasted balsamic beet? What about the honey? Wait, I really like bacon - that should be in the name too. Okay. Roasted balsamic beet, goat cheese honey, bacon, and date salad. Forget it, let's just call it Jeff. 

The point is, naming food matters. The name is the first thing you learn about the dish, like giving a stranger a handshake or a friendly smile. There isn't enough information to fully understand its complexity, but enough for a pretty good first impression.

Naming food usually follows a pattern:
- A jumble of adjectives and nouns. This is like an ad for your food, relying on your ability to cleverly string together words like "artisan" or "fresh" in a way that is both unique and fitting. Sometimes these words matter (gluten-free) and other times they're a little vague (locally grown. How local? Oh I see, just the next state over). This sort of thing seems to be trendy lately, although some people get a little carried away. If your English teacher would have called you out on a run-on sentence, perhaps it's time to abbreviate.

- A place. French toast isn't really a French dish, but other names are more accurate. Hamburger and frankfurter are nods to the German cities of Hamburg and Frankfurt, and dishes like chicken florentine are really named for Florence, Italy. In this case, my beet dish would be called Beets Connecticut. Ah, a treasured state dish.

- A person. Sandwich/Earl of Sandwich is the most common example, but there are others, including stories of eggs benedict being named after a hungover New York stockbroker.

In the end, I took the road less travelled and opted for the kind of name that usually belongs to a person. This culinary form of poetic license is also an acceptable way to navigate your naming difficulties. The most important thing is that whatever you're calling it, your recipe does the talking for you.

Jeff the Goat Cheese and Roasted Beet Salad

• 3-4 medium sized red beets
• 1/2 - 1 cup salad greens
• 1/2 cup dates, sliced
• 1/4 cup bacon pieces
• 1/4 cup goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 green onion, sliced
• 1/4 cup olive oil 
• 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar 
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 lemon wedge

Coat beets with oil and roast them in a foil-covered pan at 450° for 60-75 minutes. Test by poking them with a fork - if it slides in easily, they're done. 

When beets are roasted (this will take a lot longer than other vegetables) let cool. Peel beets and cut into bite sized pieces. My preferred method for peeling beets is wiping the warm beet with a paper towel. The skin should slide right off. 

Drizzle beets with balsamic vinegar, and additional oil if needed.

In a large bowl, combine beets, greens, dates, bacon pieces, goat cheese, and green onions. Drizzle with honey and lemon juice.




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