Edamame, Beets and Pomegranate Salad

I haven’t been able to upload very many blog entrees this whole summer. I guess, with my two kids back from college, the poor blog-baby got neglected. But now that the summer is over and the kids are busy with their own lives, some normalcy has returned to my household and I have gotten back to doing some of the things I like to do. Of course, the summer was a super busy time and most of it was spent in the kitchen. With my son and daughter being home, their friends constantly visiting and a lot of out-of-town guests (Washington DC is a great place to visit during the summer), I cooked pretty much every day but I just never got the chance to write the recipes down and take photographs. The result was that the blog was left to exist on cruise control. I am so grateful for my loyal readers that the steady rate of visitors kept up and I am now able to pick up where I left off.
Now that I am cooking for two again (my husband and I), I don’t have to make elaborate meals. I just prefer to make one-pot healthy and well balanced meals. When the weather is cold, I make large pots of soups or chilli and on warm days I make complex salads that are filling but at the same time they are healthy and delicious. So today’s recipe is yet another one in the series of salads that I love to make. The best part is that it doesn’t require much cooking either. I just boiled the beets but you can also buy cooked beets (Trader Joe’s sells cooked beets) and the rest of the recipe just needs some quick chopping and thawing. With the bright colors of lime green Edamame, maroon beets, yellow sweet peppers, purple onions, deep green basil leaves, red pomegranate seeds and white pine nuts, the salad is beautiful, texturally complex and packed with vitamins!

Ingredients:

1. 2 medium sized cooked beets
2. 2-3 small sweet yellow bell pepper (or half of the large variety)
3. A small bunch of fresh basil leaves
4. Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
5. One 1-2 inches big chunk of a red onion
6. 2-3 tablespoons of roasted pine nuts
7. ½ of a pomegranate
8. 1 cup of cooked shelled edamame (I bought the frozen ones from Trader Joe’s)
9. 1.5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
10. 1 tablespoon of Balsamic Vinegar (I used an aged thick syrupy variety)
11. 1 tablespoon of honey

Directions:

1. Grate the cooked beets.
2. In a large bowl place the grated beets one side (it’s good to keep them separate initially because they bleed color).

3. Finely chop the onion and place it in the bowl.
4. Thaw the frozen edamame (shelled) and dry them with a paper towel and add to the bowl.

5. Cut the pomegranate and take out the seeds of half the pomegranate.

6. Place the pomegranate seeds in the bowl.
7. Wash, take out the seeds and finely chop the flesh of the sweet yellow bell pepper.

8. Coarsely chop the basil leaves.
9. Place the basil leaves and the bell pepper in the bowl.

10. Also add the roasted pine nuts to the bowl

11. Sprinkle salt and freshly ground pepper.

12. In a small bowl, mix the olive oil, Balsamic Vinegar and honey and whisk them together to make the vinaigrette.

13. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and toss everything together gently.
14. Garnish with a sprig of fresh basil on top and serve the salad chilled. Enjoy!

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