This recipe is a little more involved than what I usually offer, but I couldn’t resist the idea of a beet cake. The recipe comes from Michel Nischan, author of “Sustainably Delicious: Making the World a Better Place, One Recipe at a Time.”
Tyler Williams of Woodfire Grill demonstrated this recipe at Morningside Farmers Market earlier this month. It’s a perfect use of several things in your box (substitute more beets if you don’t have carrots around). Blackberries are in season right this minute and available at most local farmers markets this weekend, so stock up! No faro on hand? Substitute Israeli couscous, orzo or even rice.
As promised – pickles. These are pickles I grew up eating, turnip pickles dyed fuchsia with the addition of a beet. Perfect for this box – one small beet, all your turnips and a clove of that fresh garlic. This recipe actually comes by way of ABC. Diane Sawyer made a trip to Syria and brought back turnip pickles – the folks on “The Chew” provided a recipe to make these stateside.
This last recipe is an adaptation of one from Marc Sommers, executive chef of Parsley’s Custom Catering in Kennesaw, who demonstrated it at the Morningside Farmers Market a year or so ago. He says he “borrowed” this recipe from his Belarusian mother-in-law. I just had a beet-and-potato salad at an Ethiopian restaurant last night and I can’t wait to try this one.
This recipe is adapted from one by Martha Rose Shulman and published in the New York Times.
I’m always surprised by the number of people who think you can’t eat beets raw. Of course you can!
And if you scrub them well, you don’t even need to peel them. Just trim up the stem and root ends and that’s all the prep they need. Especially if you’re going to grate them.
Sadly, I do not know where this recipe came from, but as the beet harvest is winding down, thought you might enjoy one more way to use those beets. It provides very detailed directions for dealing with your beets. For those of you who are not fans of goat cheese, substitute any soft cheese, even cream cheese. This recipe is a bit of trouble, but would make a great entrée or side dish for entertaining. You can prepare everything ahead of time and refrigerate, then bake just before you need it for dinner.
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.
This very simple salad comes from Fine Cooking magazine. The simplest way to “roast” a beet is to cut off the leaves, leaving about an inch of stem, scrub the beet and put it into some covered container in your microwave, making sure the beet is still wet. Steam for as long as it takes it to get tender, which is going to vary by the size of the beet. 10 minutes? 20 minutes? Depends. Carefully remove from the microwave and let it cool. Properly done, the skin just peels right off. No muss, no fuss.
Elizabeth Schneider, the author of “Vegetable from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference” (William Morrow & Company, 2001) loves root vegetables nested in their greens. She does something similar with hareuki turnips.