Beets Me

The last of the vegetable series has arrived!

My love of beets started when my good friend Nova returned from Russia.  She lived with me a bit and, while I was familiar with her and her family's extensive cooking skills, I was wary of her extolling the virtues of the beet.  In my experience, beets were those crinkly cut, sour, mystery-veggie at salad bars.  That was it.  But I decided to at least try it and was instantly smitten.  I became a life long beet fan, it was all beets all the time.  For a while I talked about my love of beets so often that my mother starting cutting out every article and recipe containing any word of a beet.  My collection is many volumes strong.

First, roasteda unpeeled beets in, what else, olive oil, salt, pepper, covered with foil.  They could just be wrapped and roasteda in foil as well.  These ones were small, the size of a large walnut, so they cooked for about 35 minutes.  I don't trim them much because if their skin gets cut they seem to leak all their juice out.  Then, when cooled, the peels just slip off and take all the dirt and stuff with them.

Gorgeous, right?

We ate these with some miso-ginger-lemon marinated chicken and with the beets greens that had been braised in the chicken marinade.  Eating beets and their greens is like injecting my body with Mom Nature, they are so darn good for you.  Check it out.

Comments

[alice]

OK, I have to admit. I am a novice vegetable consumer and I have some prejudices against beets. Your beets are gorgeous, and maybe I'll give them a try if I see them at the Farmer's market this weekend. You've exposed me to a whole new world of veggies this past coupld of weeks!

[alice]

By the way, I love how you keep changing the little one-liner under Spicetart. I think your pictures look wonderful!!

[Kevin]

Molly,

So many great ideas! And the roasted beets look Rokken with Dokken. I can't wait to try them out! Thanks for the excellent veggie series...totally appreciated!!

Kevin

[Suebob]

I have always loved beets ever since I was a kid, even though my mom used to make "Harvard Beets" with a horrible sweet orange sauce.

My favorite preparation is roasted. I usually eat mine with a very vinegary balsamic vinaigrette, some blue cheese, and some toasted walnuts. Yum.

The photos are gorgeous, especially the peeled beets.

[caryn]

Ok, I bought some fresh beets this morning at the farmer's market because yours looked so good. Wish me luck!

Oh, and any idea what to do with the greens? I hear they're good for you...