EdHart.me
There’s something about roasted red beets that feels grounding this time of year: earthy, slightly sweet, and deeply satisfying. Paired with creamy goat cheese, toasted pecans, and crisp halved little gem lettuce heads, this salad strikes the perfect balance between rustic and refined.
This is a dish built on patience and transformation. Raw collards are tough, grassy, almost defiant. But given heat, fat, acid, and a little sweetness – and most importantly, time – they soften into something generous and soulful. The leaves surrender. The pot liquor deepens. What begins sharp and bitter becomes rounded, savory, and deeply comforting.
I ran across this amazing stonefruit salad in the July 2025 issue of Food & Wine, which used plums for the salad, but I’ve made it now many times with plums, plumcots, and peaches and it’s amazing.
On a recent trip to Chicago, I had the chance to eat at Gibson’s which, if you haven’t been before, is a carnivore’s treat! I highly recommend! But to the point of this post, one of the sides we enjoyed was sauteéd mushrooms and spinach. It was so good that I had to try and make it at home.