[Before I get to the beets.. Still in the midst of getting the coding for the not-so-public stuff in order, it's taking longer than I thought. In the shuffling for some archived code, I found a vector I had worked on a year ago and figured it was now or never. It's been bouncing on the header left and right for the last hour but I think it will stay put. If you don't see it, it's embedded in some java.]
This post and hopefully posts to come will document an earnest effort to liberate my eating habits. I will always have a place in my belly for Hamburger Helper, Stoffer’s and Chef Boyardee and their paper weight meals. A part of me still holds on to the wishful thinking that such garbage food isn’t all that bad. We live, don’t we? We save time, don’t we? We save money, don’t we?
Well, I’m not so sure these days and this is why I’ve got red beets in my kitchen.
So beets. so random, you say. Never once did I pay attention to them. They were never in our refrigerator and a canned beet was suspect. I wonder what my dad thinks of them. He always has some strange and intriguing explanation for waging the blech-food finger. My favorite: “Cilantro tastes like dish water!” he’d proclaim. The only beet I saw for a long time was at a Pizza Hut salad bar, cold and previously canned, it would stain my sunflower seed covered, cottage cheese a brilliant pink.
Tom Robbins wrote that the beet is a serious vegetable. I haven’t finished the book yet but I already disagree. After watching A’s 3 year old nephew paint himself a wide clown smile with a plateful of beets, it’s clear the beet is laughably simple and sweet.
1 kilogram of organic beets costs 1.88€. Trim the ends and put them in boiling water with a little bit of vinegar to preserve the color. Cooking them whole will preserve the flavor but large ones will take about 1 hour to cook in a traditional pot. I used a pressure cooker for 20 minutes on the highest ring setting and they came out fabulous. Afterwards I put the beets in a bowl of cold water, while I rubbed the skin off with my fingers. It comes off easily and I didn’t notice any finger staining during the process.
There is tons of information on the health benefits of red beets brimming on the net but now that I have these health gems, what to do with them? Besides boil them and tossing them onto a salad, I’m starving for better beet eating ideas. Any suggestions?
I kinda know where your dad is coming from on the “cilantro tastes like dishwater” front — there is some sort of soapy undertone to the cilantro flavor.
Not that that makes me love it any less. I am all for cilantro.
Beets are something that I’ve come around to quite late in my life – part of it comes from enjoying them pickled and bright pink as garnish for the Middle Eastern food I enjoy so much and then being open to trying them prepared other ways — along with a lot of other vegetables I’d previously sworn off — after having moved here.
I LOVE Beets! They are one of my favorites!
Lord, I love beets! But I love them home pickled and as Harvard beets and roasted and boiled… maybe I should buy a pressure cooker to make things faster? I eat them from the jar, I eat them cold when they are left over after a meal, and yet I have never eaten them as Borscht… a bad experience in Israel once. Maybe you will find a good recipe and share it?
Our familie´s traditional christmas dish is “Roter Heringssalat”. You can search the web for recipes as well as for “Labskaus”, a typical meal from Norddeutschland. Our two horses love beets by the way
@cliff1976 Middle Eastern dishes! ah, just in time for Summer.
@Maribeth Do you grow them in your garden?
@G Borschtsch looks, um, interesting. but “Baked Red Beets in a salt crust” looks really interesting. http://www.tim-maelzer.info/rezepte/kuchen-und-desserts/2009/10/doraden-vom-blech-mit-roter-bete/
@Ingo Hey, you’re right. We have that as well at Christmas time. I didn’t realize that had beets in it. Thanks for the Labskaus tip!
You can make a salad with beets, nuts and a little bit of garlic. Add some mayo, it will make it more delicious.
Australians love beets. They put them on everything. I’ve never tried them, I don’t know why. I just can’t do it.
@Munich News Thanks for the tip and good luck with the new website!
@A Free Man What is that you don’t like about it, AFM? I’m not in love with them but it certainly is refreshing to have something different every now and then. Variety is after all the spice of life
Mark Bittman has a nice variation on the beet & walnut salad thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qnmk7jjOpg
um, garlic-walnut sauce. Thanks for the link, Harvey!!