I love beets. I've always loved them, since before they were cool.
They are sweet like carrots but you need to cook them to release the sugars. Here is a really basic recipe to bring out the natural sweetness of beets.
I get my child involved from the start. We go to the farmer's market or the store (at the farmer's market you get a better variety of colors). When we pick out the colors I give them names like dragon root, royal root and fairy root. Beets is such an unappealing name. When Adia is a little older I will let her chop the beets but for now I do it. Let your kids hang around for this part though. The colors that come out are beautiful. (I made up these names so Adia would be interested in eating them.)
I chop them up into strips and put them in boiling water. Do not boil the magenta beet with the others only because it will dye the others pink. It dyes everything pink. (It will even dye your pee pink. Don't be alarmed.)
Let them boil for 5 minutes or until a fork can be pushed in rather easily. You just don't want to overcook them or they don't hold up. Don't worry you can't screw this up.
Throw some olive oil on a cookie sheet. Sesame oil would probably rock this dish's socks but I haven't tried it. A sidenote on olive oil: buy a really nice one with additional flavor and put it on topof your or pasta once they are done cooking. Here is a list of some oils.
Put the beets on the oiled pan and salt. In this photo I put potatoes in the middle. I boiled them like the beets but when they were done boiling I threw them in a bowl with olive oil, rosemary, salt, black pepper, garlic and a little pinch of white pepper. Potatoes don't have much flavor so don't worry about overdoing it.
I put them in the oven on broil till the edges are browned. The potatoes were done much faster than the beets so I would do them separately next time.
We had a salad with red lettuce leaf and the left over beet greens. I candied almonds to sprinkle on top with black berries (they grow wild all over the place in the Northwest), goat cheese and Cindy's Kitchen Wild Maine Blueberry, it's one of my favorite dressings next to Brianna's Poppy Seed.
Recipe Rundown- Cut Beets
- Boil till slightly soft
- Add salt and oil
- Bake in the oven till brown
I ate that meal, and let me tell you - DELICIOUS. Really, really delicious. The next night I cooked for my household and made roasted beets and potatoes (and yams) just because I loved this so much. It really is hard to screw up. I had to boil the beets longer than 5 minutes, though. Possibly because I put a LOT in kind of small pot. But it worked out, it was super easy, and all my roommates commented on how great it was. And I peed a sort of rust red color the next day, which is awesome if you're easily entertained, as I am.
Oh, but I left the goat cheese off my salad. Because goat cheese is for FREAKS.
I'm laughing at Rebecca's comments about goat cheese. Funny.
I am excited to try this. I've never eaten beets before. Um, ever. I'd only ever heard of them raw.
I'm excited to keep reading all of your ideas and recipes and try new things.