Apple Beet Salad

This salad has a great combination of flavors with beets, apples, and an apple cider vinaigrette. 

Apple Beet Salad

Salad:

• 1 head romaine lettuce, shredded
• 2 apples, diced (your favorite!)
• 2 medium beets, cooked and diced
• pecans or almonds, chopped (optional)
• crumbly cheese, like feta (optional)

Vinaigrette:

• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• splash of mapleine 
• 1/2 tsp salt

Prepare and assemble salad ingredients. If you use red beets, they will stain the apples, so if you want a pretty presentation, don't mix right away. Place all the vinaigrette ingredients in a mason jar and shake together. Pour over salad.

Notes:

• Because my family thinks my salads are weird, I usually keep a batch of the vinaigrette in the fridge and make individual salads for myself. It makes a nice lunch with some chicken tenderloins and fruit, or it works well as a side with dinner. 
• You can use canned beets or cook raw beets. I actually found some frozen steamable bags at Aldi recently. There are a few ways to cook beets. You can wrap them in foil like potatoes and bake then in the oven for an hour or so. You can cook them in a pressure cooker on the turret with a little water. Use the manual to determine how long they will need to cook. You can also wrap a beet in a paper towel and microwave until soft. Like potatoes, they are done when you can pierce them with a fork. Usually you can rub the peels right off with your fingers.
• I learned from Eliza about using yellow beets instead of red ones so you don't stain your hands and everything else.
• If you have real maple syrup, you can use a tablespoon of that instead of the sugar and mapleine.