Salad Burnett and More Beets

Salad Burnett has been a new one in our CSA this summer; it's a fern-like herb that has a slight flavor of cucumber. It is apparently a member of the rose family, and can stay green all winter long (I notice it also lasts a lot longer in my fridge than other cut herbs). Here's a particularly useful column on it.

I've used it a variety of ways: chopped it up and added it to my squash as I grilled it, included it in my herb butter and baked it on some Halibut, and added it to a vinaigrette for green salad. No real unique uses, but I think it is a fun complement to the usual herb lineup. :)

As the blog title promises, when a big bunch of beets came in our CSA a few weeks back, I decided to give the Cooking Light Beet and Fennel Soup recipe I found a try. Overall, it was very easy to make and tasty. Though, I would recommend it as a starter as frankly, there's only so much beet one should have in a single meal. :) If hosting a dinner party, you could make ahead and serve it chilled.

The only changes I made was using a large shallot instead of a yellow onion, and just using lemon juice instead of vinegar (taste as you go, less was probably needed).