Home grown!

Supporting our local businesses and farmers is more important than ever during this pandemic. Several farming and marketing groups developed very soon after our initial shutdown in March and the service they provide--online ordering and delivery of local products--has not only been wonderfully convenient, the products are extraordinary and the services continued to improve in efficiency as the weeks went by.

I most frequently order from Farm Link; the online marketplace opens at noon on Saturdays and closes by Sunday evening. Delivery costs $15 but it is so worth it; the delivery truck is refrigerated so everything stays cold and fresh and even the frozen mango purée I purchased once was hard as a rock when it arrived.

Tonight's salad features a number of local products.


Our family enjoys beets so Tom always makes sure to plant some. This season he did chioggia beets. They're an heirloom variety and when you cut them open, the inside is in alternating circles of red and white. As usual, Tom's crop did well.


To roast the beets, I scrub them clean and trim off the root and the leaves. You don't want to cut into the bulb or it will leak red juice all over the place.


I wrapped the beets in foil packets. Since these were on the small side, I wrapped several of like size into one packet.


I roasted them at 350F for about an hour.


Once they have cooled a bit, I ran them under cold water and used my fingertips to rub the skins off.


And there they are!


Here's the cast for the salad dressing.


I really wanted the flavor of the beets to shine so I used a very light olive oil.


This is a "put everything into a container and shake" recipe. Love those. Balsamic next.


I used Gulden's mustard but the balsamic and the honey are local products. I talked about Island Olive Oil in a previous post; their oils and vinegars are absolutely wonderful. The honey is from Kahuku Farms.


After all the ingredients are added, I gave the bottle a good shake.


A lettuce medley from Sun Farm Hawaii. I ordered it through Farm Link Hawaii.


Golden beet from Da Farm. This also was ordered through Farm Link.


Tom's chioggia beets. The colors get much more muted after cooking.


For this salad, I wanted the greens to be a foundation with the beets as the star so I used way more beets than lettuce.


I was going to top it with a few crumbles of a local goat cheese but, unfortunately, I had left it a bit too long. I chopped up some Parmesan cheese and sprinkled that instead.

The dressing was perfect with this salad; a nice balance of sweet and tangy that was delicious with the beets and did not overpower them. A five turtle rating for the dressing and all the great home grown components that went into making this!


Here's the promised links:

 Beet Salad Dressing

BUY LOCAL!

 Farm Link
Island Olive Oil
Island Olive Oil and Chef Mavro

A few more:

Go Farm Hawaii
Oahu Fresh
Panda General Store Hawaii
Richard's Meat Market

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