Beet Green Strata

This recipe is adapted from one in “Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen” by Heidi Swanson. The recipe was written for spinach, but your beet greens will work perfectly here. The only caveat, any time you cook with beet greens, you’ll end up with a pink-tinted dish. Just warn your guests and all will be well. Serves 6.

Stratas are one of the most forgiving and accepting of dishes. Combine anything tasty, let it sit overnight and bake the next day. Hot breakfast/dinner as easy as can be.

Stale bread is great, but fresh bread works fine. You may not want to soak it quite as long. As a matter of fact, if you want to skip the “sitting” step, you can assemble a strata and bake it right away, as long as you use fresh bread.

Not a fan of feta? Substitute whatever cheese you like.

Brazilian Chicken Salad Sandwich

This recipe came from Fine Cooking magazine, I don’t remember when! Makes 4 lovely sandwiches that will serve up some of your beets and cilantro. The recipe suggests whole wheat bread, but any loaf of bread that’s handy, sub roll, baguette …. will do. The combination of salty, tart, sweet and herbal – fabulous.

Cucumber Mint Water

Unfortunately, this is another one of those recipes that I’ve had around so long I don’t remember its provenance. But it’s wonderful, wonderful if you just have too many cucumbers to eat fresh. It’s lightly sweetened and enhanced with a little mint and lemon juice. It’s a take-off on the version Lisa Rochon sells at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. You can vary the herbs – Lisa makes her cucumber water with basil.