Originally posted by Sarah – March 8, 2015
As I was chopping and prepping the veggies for this Sunday Night Dinner I was listening to the sound of dripping water into a bucket. We currently have water dripping into the kitchen through our lights. Sigh. I bet if I could ask for a show of hands how many of you have had damage due to the snow this year it would be most of you. But two families need to eat tonight and I was so excited to see more citrus in our shares. I couldn’t help myself, I jumped into it right away with this quick and easy, yet totally delicious salad.
Just like Jess, I like to roast my beets right when I get home from share pick-up. This way I have them ready and waiting for me. You can quickly toss them into any dish if you cook them up ahead. I will get more into the prep ahead ideas when the Springdell summer shares get up and rolling. I happen to have two beets leftover from the last share….jackpot.
I started by segmenting a few of the beautiful grapefruits and oranges and squeezed the extra juice into the bowl as well, I used the extra juice to make my fresh vinaigrette. The dressing was delicious and totally the key to this dish, here is what I did:
I took almost all of the juice from the citrus, about 3/4 of a cup, and put that in a bowl with 2 Tablespoons of Ben’s Maple Syrup (from a previous Springdell share), 2 Tablespoons of white wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon of salt and a shake of pepper. Mix this well and then while mixing whisk in about 1/8 of a cup of oil. It was really magnificent I think.
I assembled a salad bar so everyone could choose what they were interested in for their dinner, fun to do when there are 4 kids to feed.
The salad bar consisted of chopped romaine, citrus, mozzarella balls, chopped roasted beets, cucumbers, walnuts and cashews. They boys loved building their own dinner.
For dessert we had chocolate orange swirl cookies. I again used some of the fresh citrus and a bit of the coffee from the share last week.
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup salted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
- 1/2 teaspoon coffee grounds
- 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa
- Zest and juice from 2 oranges
- 1 egg white
- 1 teaspoon water
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioner’s sugar together until fluffy.
- Beat in eggs and vanilla.
- In three additions, add in the flour
- Divide dough in half. One half is mixed the melted chocolate, coffee grounds and cocoa. The other half gets mixed with the zest and orange juice.
- Wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Roll each half of dough on separate sheets of waxed paper sprayed with cooking spray. Roll into rectangles 1/8″ thick.
- Whisk egg white and water with a fork and brush the egg on one of the dough rectangles.
- Invert the other half of dough on top of egg washed dough
- Roll dough from the long end to form a log, freeze for 30 minutes.
- preheat oven to 350°F.
- Remove dough from the freezer and with a sharp knife, slice crosswise into 1/4″ thick rounds. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Follow the recipe for the swirl cookies, it explains things pretty well. The only tricky part is the rolling out of the dough for the two layers. Make sure you spray the waxed paper with cooking spray or you will have a really big mess on your hands. 
Use the first dough as a guide to help you roll the second dough to the correct size.
Never skimp on the freezing times and you will have a nice rolled cookie that slices easily with a good sharp knife.
They came out very pretty and tasted pretty good. If I were to make them again I would add a glaze to them as well.
Enjoy!