beets

Was anyone else excited to see beets in our box this week? I’ve missed beets this year and have been hoping we’d see a few before the weather turned too hot. I found the recipe below in the Washington Post – Crispy Smashed Beets with Garlic, Scallions, and Chile. Since I’ve become a big fan of roasting potatoes this way (surely potatoes will be in our boxes soon) and wanted to try the idea with beets. It’s an adaption of a recipe in Gregory Gourdet’s cookbook, “Everyone’s Table” (Harper Wave, 2021). The box has beets, garlic and green onions. All you need is the chile pepper – and that, you can skip and use red pepper flakes instead. Our bunches of beets are big smaller than 2 pounds, but that’s ok. Just cut the recipe down.

This is a recipe from Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.” In his notes he says, “Beets, like carrots, can be eaten raw. And they’re delicious that way, crunchy and sweet. So sweet, in fact, that they need a strongly acidic dressing like this one for balance.”

If you don’t have shallot, finely dice a little bit of the yellow-skinned onion in today’s box.

My favorite way to eat beets is to roast them. Just roasted and sliced, I’m generally happy. But here’s a fancier version that doesn’t take too much more time. It’s adapted from a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated magazine. I’m including their method for cooking beets. You can follow that, or you can roast them in whatever way you prefer. Use the mint if you have some in your garden, or pick up a bunch at a local farmers market.