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An American Patzaria - Creamy Beet Spread with Blue Cheese and Bacon

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An American Patzaria - Creamy Beet Spread with Blue Cheese and Bacon

Photo by Savour

This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Beets

This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Open House Dish

This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Dip
Chef
Savour's Notes: As a child, I never had beets at home (my father claimed allergies -- a claim about which I remain highly skeptical), but I loved beets, and I always got them in the salad bar of my favorite...
As a child, I never had beets at home (my father claimed allergies -- a claim about which I remain highly skeptical), but I loved beets, and I always got them in the salad bar of my favorite restaurant. My childhood salads never varied -- they always had croutons, green onions, bacon bits and blue cheese dressing with the beets. As an adult, I encountered Patzaria, the Greek yogurt-based beet salad, and I decided to combine the flavors of my childhood salad bar with the Greek appetizer in this recipe. The result is salty, sweet, smoky and entirely addictive -- it makes a great and unexpected hors d'oeuvre.

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Serves 3-4

2 medium beets Ask the
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1 cup nonfat Greek style yogurt Ask the
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1.5 ounces blue cheese, finely crumbled Ask the
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2 pieces bacon Ask the
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1 tablespoon chives, finely minced Ask the
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3 pieces pita bread, lightly toasted Ask the
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Scrub the beets, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, enclose in a foil packet and roast at 350 degrees for 40 minutes to an hour, or until tender. Let cool and chop into a fine dice.
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Fry the bacon until crisp. Let cool, and chop finely.
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Combine the yogurt and the blue cheese in a small bowl and mash with a fork until the cheese in incorporated into the yogurt.
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Add the chopped beets, bacon and the chives. Mix thoroughly until the entire mixture is a rather alarming magenta hue (this actually helps convince 3 year old girls to eat it, believe it or not). The mixture may be covered and stored in the refrigerator right away, or eaten immediately.
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Serve with toasted pita triangles. Enjoy.
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NuM NuM added about 1 year ago

made this today and it was amazing. Freakishly scary looking, but so tasty!!! Here's a link to my blog if you want to see it.

http://lisasnumnum.blogspot.com/2011/01/creamy-beet-spread-with-blue-cheese-and.html

Olga of Mango & Tomato added about 1 year ago

growing up in Russia we made a similar dish: roasted and grated beets combined with mayonnaise (of course!), toasted walnuts, dried prunes and minced garlic.