Blue and Gold Salad

I love salad and I love Spring and I love California and all of that comes together in this dish--a salad that reminds me of Spring in California when all the  wildflowers are in bloom—like this scene from A Taste of Honey (Oberon, book 4):

“It was a glorious Spring day.  The air along the coast was warm and lushly scented with yerba buena, eucalyptus and sage.  Fat, majestic puffs sailed across the sky, casting cloud-shaped shadows onto the earth and sea below, further mottling the already variegated landscape.  When she turned off the coast road onto the canyon drive that led to the nursery, she saw that the  hills that lined the way, gray-green, emerald, and gold for most of the year, had been transformed.  They’d blossomed overnight into an almost endless expanse of  orange and blue--mostly California poppies and lupine--disrupted only where the spiky silver foliage and dried flower heads of wild artichokes broke through to tower above them.” 

Ingredients

4 golden beets

4 purple potatoes
3 Tbs EVOO
1 pinch fresh rosemary
1 pinch thyme
salt and pepper to taste

¼  cup + 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp honey

1 pinch each of fresh rosemary and thyme, finely chopped

Juice from ½ Meyer lemon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 golden beets

4 purple potatoes

4 slices Applewood smoked bacon

6 cups fresh arugula or Mesclun salad mix

2 Granny Smith apples

½  cup walnuts

¼  cup dried cherries

½  avocado, cut into cubes

3 ounces coarsely crumbled goat cheese (preferably chèvre)

Directions

Line baking sheet with foil. Preheat oven to 350 F.

Clean, peel and chop beets and potatoes into bite-sized pieces. Toss with 3 Tbsp olive oil, herbs and seasonings to coat then arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and stir contents. Add walnuts and drizzle honey over beets, potatoes and walnuts. Return to oven for another 10 to 15 minutes, or until beets and potatoes are tender and slightly caramelized.

Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.

While beets and potatoes are cooking, Cook bacon until crisp. Set aside to cool and then crumble.

Chop apples into small pieces.

In a small bowl, combine lemon juice with ½ tsp. salt and ¼ tsp. pepper. Slowly whisk in olive oil until vinaigrette comes together. Adjust seasonings as needed. 

Serve with a nice glass or Rose or Chardonnay and enjoy!

And please check out these other Tasty Tuesday blogs for more great eats!

Quick Maple Pudding by Nancy Lauzon

Chili Throwdown by Selena Robins

Happy New Year!

http://carrieannbloghops.blogspot.com/

Welcome to another awesome New Year's Blog Hop!!! It's a new year and we have new books for you to celebrate with--not to mention some fabulous prizes:

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $300 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

As I write this post, the new year is only a few minutes old. My daughter and I have just concluded our traditional ringing-in of the new year, which includes writing down our wishes and goals for the new year and--at midnight--burning the paper on which they were written to send our wishes out into the universe. Then we stood outside, watching the fireworks, while drinking sparkling pink moscato. This year we added a new twist by drinking our wine out of snowman mugs. We'll see if that one sticks.  

Earlier, I made my traditional New Year's Day dessert (and breakfast--what can I say?) Meyer lemon chess pie and my daughter, who spent part of the summer in Portugal made pastel de nata. 

As you might imagine, we're big on New Year's traditions, which (as I've mentioned several times this month--sorry, I mean LAST month!) is something I share with the characters of my newest release, Finders Keepers, even though the book is set several decades in the future. 

To me, it makes sense that people in my fast-changing future world would seek to hang on to whatever traditions would help them feel grounded and secure--especially on a holiday that emphasizes newness. 

So, on this beautiful new day (and according to the weather forecast, it will be very beautiful) I wish you all a very happy new year, wishes fulfilled, and a future that's brighter than you can imagine. 

Sometimes finding what you want is the easy part.

Caleb is a bionic soldier with little-to-no memory of his past. He's seeking the truth about himself and those missing memories.

Aldo's an undercover cop who just might have the answers to Caleb's questions. But if Caleb's the man Aldo thinks he is, how can he let him get away a second time?

Then there's Sally; she's an ER physician who used to be married to Aldo's late partner, Davis. Sally's not dealing with widowhood very well. In fact, it's getting harder, every day, just to find a reason to keep getting out of bed. If the truth about the men's shared past comes to light, she could lose them both. Along with her last, best reason to go on living.

This holiday season, chance will bring them together and give them an opportunity to help one another find what they each want most. But every gift comes with a price. And keeping what they've found once they've found it? Yeah, that's gonna be the hard part. 

Buy book HERE or HERE or HERE

For a hot excerpt, check out this blog post HERE

a Rafflecopter giveaway