Beetroot with goats' cheese

We ate this last night, sitting out in the last of the sun by way of a shared starter.  It is based on a recipe of Nigel Slater's, again taken from the Kitchen Diaries.  This doesn't really require any cooking apart from the beetroot, and the goats cheese is nice plain, we just have a lot of sage in the garden at the moment, so I thought it would be interesting to see what flavour it added to the cheese.

Beetroot with sage-rolled goats' cheese

A bunch of fresh beetroot
a small soft goats' cheese (without a rind)
four of five sprigs of fresh sage
a handful of black grapes, if you have them
a loaf of good, fresh bread (we used olive bread from Betty's)
butter to serve

Chop the tapering roots and stalks off the beetroot - if the leaves and stalks are still fresh they can be cooked up like chard (these ones weren't worth keeping, so went straight to the compost).

Place in an ovenproof dish with 1/2 inch of water and cover with tinfoil.  Cook on a medium high heat until a soft enough to spear with a knife quite easily.  Remove from the oven, rinse and peel. 

Meanwhile finely chop the sage, and roll the circumference of the cheese in the herbs.

Place the cheese on a plate with the cold beetroots and the grapes.  Serve with warm bread and butter.  My family, who are aficionados of neither beetroot nor goats' cheese ate it all with relish.

Beetroot and goats' cheese