Rainbow Salad with Roasted Potatoes and Blue Cheese

This is a dinner-sized salad, full of crispy sweet vegetables and roasted potato goodness.  Not only is this salad delicious, it is also fairly healthy.  Nutritionists tell us that one easy way to ensure that you are getting all of your nutrients is to eat a variety of different colored vegetables.  It doesn’t get much more colorful than this.

The salad is good as described, but if you like, you can add slices of leftover meat.  Sliced steak, for example, is really good with the potatoes and blue cheese.

Rainbow Salad with Roasted Potatoes and Blue Cheese

Makes two dinner-sized servings

My grocery store sells these mixed baby potatoes, which are fun, but you can use any baby potatoes.  Baby Yukon Golds would be a good choice.

4 ounces French green beans, aka haricots vert, raw, washed, and cut in half.  You could also use regular green beans, but haricots vert are more delicate, if you can find them.

1 raw beet

1 raw carrot

8-10 new potatoes

2 ounces crumbled blue cheese, or more to taste

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon of your favorite vinegar.

Two plates of mesclun greens.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Roast the potatoes:  Cut the potatoes in half, toss them in a bit of olive oil, and place them cut side down on a cookie sheet. Roast them for 20-30 minutes, stirring once or twice so they don’t stick to the cookie sheet. Take them out when they are golden brown on the cut side and set them aside to cool a bit.

While the potatoes roast, prepare the vegetables. Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Blanch the green beans for just one minute until they are bright green, and then drain them in a colander.

Use a vegetable peeler to peel the carrot and the beet, and then coarsely grate them. If I am feeling fancy, I use my mandoline slicer to make nice julienne strips.

Make two platefuls of mesclun greens.  You will put the rest of the salad on top of the greens.

Put the roast potatoes, blanched green beans, grated carrots and grated beets into a bowl.  Crumble blue cheese over the vegetables.  Sprinkle a bit of vinegar over the salad.  If you want, you can add a bit of olive oil, but there is already a fair amount of oil from the potatoes.

Toss the salad.  If the potatoes are still a bit warm, they will gently melt the crumbled blue cheese.  Yum!  And yes, the salad will turn bright pink because of the beets.

Serve tossed vegetables on top of plates of mesclun.