Beets, Kale & Fennel Salad

A great salad!

 

Ingredients:

 

3 roasted beets (tennis ball size), sliced into about 1 inch length and 1/4 inch thickness *

1 1/2 cups fennel, raw, chopped

some fennel fronds 

2 1/2 cups curly or lacinato kale leaves, torn or cut into bite-size pieces, not fine pieces

2 1/2 cups beet greens, torn or cut into bite-sized pieces

1/2 cup pecorino romano shavings

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon salt

homemade blue cheese dressing for serving** 

                               or

homemade ranch dressing***

In a large bowl, add the cut beets, fennel, fennel fronds, kale, beet greens, pecorino romano shavings, ground black pepper and salt; toss to mix everything well (I do it by hand). Serve topped with homemade blue cheese dressing. You can serve the salad with a side dish of extra pecorino romano shavings for those who like more cheese.  

* For oven roasted beets, here is the recipe: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/06/roasted-beets.html 

 

** The recipe for homemade blue cheese dressing:  https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/07/homemade-blue-cheese-dressing.html

 

*** The recipe for homemade ranch dressing:  https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2016/06/homemade-ranch-dressing.html

 

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Balm (Balsam)-"Balm" goes back to transliterated Hebrew "basam," which meant "spice, pleasant smell." Greek borrowed the word as "balsamon" meaning "the Arabian balsam tree, or the oil of this tree," which was used for perfume, and Latin borrowed this as "balsamum," with the same meanings. Old French rendered the word as "basme," and English borrowed that form circa 1200, but also "baume," a form from Anglo-Norman, also spelled "bawm/bawme" in English, and this later became "balm" (1500s?) in imitation of the Latin spelling with "l". The meaning also moved from "perfume," seemingly to a parallel meaning, "annointing oil used to soothe," to "oily substance used to treat pain or wounds;" thus also "any person or anything that soothes someone's emotional pain." The word "balsam" is from the Latin "balsamum," mentioned above, and indeed, it was used in that form by English more than a thousand years ago for "soothing oil of some plants," and later it was also used for "the resin of these plants," which was chewed. By about the mid 1500s, the word was whittled down to "balsam," where it has remained ever since, but the meaning for the resin died out, but the "soothing oil" meaning expanded to many types of "ointment used to soothe wounds, injuries or certain inflammatory conditions;" thus it is really synonymous with "balm."