Produce trio: beets

[mrissa]

1. Roasted beets with walnuts and goat cheese. Heat oven to 400 F. Wash beets and cut the ends off. Make a little packet with foil and put the beets and a little drizzle of olive oil in. Throw on a cookie sheet or other baking dish (or bare in the oven if you trust your foil-packet-sealing abilities). Bake for 40 minutes or until the beets are fork tender. Peel when cool enough to peel. Toss with crumbles of mild sweet goat cheese (Celebrity Goat with honey is awfully good for this purpose) and toasted walnuts or pecans.

2. Beet yogurt with herbs. There is a restaurant called Byblos in Montreal, and it is a Persian restaurant with very little overlap in foods with most Persian restaurants I’ve been to. They serve a trio of veg-yogurts, beet and spinach and eggplant. It is very colorful as well as delicious. In this recipe I used rice vinegar instead of the recommended red wine vinegar because my family is fairly particular about vinegars. And it was lovely, just perfect. (My attempt at the spinach version: less perfect. Stay tuned.) You can eat it with a spoon, or with pieces of pita, or you can use it as a condiment on a sandwich with shredded chicken or whatever other things you like. It is so pink. Also, as I noted on other social media earlier, very handy for demonstrating that you have a crack in your tupperware.

3. Sesame beets. This was my dinner, along with a peanut butter apple. (My food gets a little eccentric when I’m only feeding myself.) I substituted lemon juice in for the lime juice listed, because my lime betrayed me, and I used a sesame oil that was infused with chilis. I also didn’t boil the beets on the stove, because I’m using the limited stove as little as possible until we get it fixed next week, so instead I cooked them as above, but for slightly less time because I didn’t want them to be completely soft. It’s important to toss them thoroughly, or you’ll just get the taste of mild roasted beets with a little aftertaste of the sesame seeds (which is fine but not, y’know, notable) and not the happy tangy dressing.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Or roast 'em as above, peel 'em, cut 'em into chunks and toss in a dressing of oil, balsamic and honey, then put 'em back into the oven to glaze for fifteen minutes. Then eat with walnuts and goat's cheese and arugula.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds good! Sadly timprov has a balsamic allergy, so I'm unlikely to do this as much.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is sad. Also, I will never cease to be taken by surprise by the seemingly ever-increasing range of available allergies. Is it known what timprov reacts to, in balsamic?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't think so, but it's painful. To the point where he does not yearn after it, not at all like my mom's walnut allergy, which causes Much Yearning.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I guess that is the better kind of allergy, that utterly discourages you from wanting the product.

Me, I have the best kind of allergy. I am allergic to house dust mite, and have an actual piece of paper from an actual doctor saying "do not vacuum!" and "have someone else make the bed!" and like that. (Sadly, flourishing this paper does not actually work, it only gets me laughed at; but still! I have a paper! And moral superiority, that too. That sees me through, as I drag bed linens off the mattress and all the little mites come swarming up...)

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

MUST try the beets with goat cheese. Using hazelnuts, though, as I am allergic to walnuts.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Pecans can also be nice. My mother is allergic to walnuts also.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Pecans are also on my extensive and annoying allergen list.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry. How frustrating.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Mmm, toasted hazelnuts...

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

They're tasty anytime.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Mmm, beets. My favorite thing to do with red beets is to make a slaw of raw beets, fennel, red onion, and mint. I use a ratio of about one (medium) fennel bulb to two (medium) beets to one (smallish, or half a large) onion, all shaved very very thinly on a mandoline, and dress it in a very simple vinaigrette, and use about one good-sized bunch of mint, in chiffonnade.

My favorite thing to do with yellow beets is to roast them, dice them, and toss them with goat cheese, toasted pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries. Colorful! Diced sweet potato is also very nice in this.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Pumpkin seeds! Sweet potato! What could go south with this?

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

When I've cubed roasted beets and mixed them with chopped bits of pickled lemon, it's been a hit.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My life does not contain enough pickled lemon.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Well, damn. If I thought I could get it past TSA, I'd totally bring one of my jars along.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That was not intended to be a hint!

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know it wasn't. I was being wistful. (Three jars here. M'ris there. No teleporter at hand. Damn.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Boy, when we get the teleporter working, I have plans.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Does anyone's life contain enough pickled lemon?

[sheff-dogs.livejournal.com]

Should you grow your own or if you are able to buy beets with happy leaves they also make excellent eating. Cook them in boiling water or better after washing turn in a little of the oil you intend to dress them in and put over a low heat in a heavy saucepan with a tight lid, turn occasionally until soft. If you want onion in your beetroot salad and you happen to have problems with raw onion soften chopped onion in the oil before adding the beet greens. Then for a really whizzy salad add creamed horsradish to your standard oil and vinegar dressing, this is really scrummy.

Another I like that is visually rather shocking is beetroot gratin; peel raw and slice thinly on a mandarin, put in a shallow oven dish add cream or white sauce and bake.

A friend had a bright pink beetroot risotto one time we ate out. I've tried reproducing this and while it tasted fine I didn't get the colour so vivid, in fact it looked a muddy brown. Might be worth trying baked beetroot added for just long enough to heat through.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

We are more skeptical about beets in my house than we want to be, but I recently made a beet rosti pancake like the Swiss potato pancake, just gared and mixed wiyh a little flour and fried in butter. Huge success. I will try your walnut and goat cheese one soon.