Easy, Fast, Vegan. Can't Beat These Beets.

   
   We grow a lot of our own produce at our place here in Sonoma. Every year when it's time to plant I think about what I like to cook, what vegetables I'm always shopping for, and those are the ones I choose. We xeriscaped our property when we bought it, took out the fountain out back, and the lawns in the front and back, kept the roses, planted fruit trees and herbs and in the back put 7 large raised growing beds. What we get out of these supplies a LOT of vegetables. Everything in the garden is on a drip system which is connected to NOAA by wifi which controls water consumption, and we renovated to CalGreen standards which brings out the DoomsDay Prepper in me. Next up, a cistern and grey water system, but for now we got a whole lot of veggies with the minimum of water and lot of chicken manure.
    
   One vegetable we always grow, because we like it and it's used in so many Indian recipes are beets. After the big storms we had last week and the ones coming/we are in the middle of this week, I harvested several pounds of beets and several pounds of potatoes. The potatoes are laid away in cold storage in the garage. Some have been separated out as seed potatoes for this springs garden, others stored for eating. The beets are going to be roasted, vacuum sealed, and frozen. But before they go into the deep freeze, we're enjoying some of them for lunch.

      
   Beets are great vegetables and I never really appreciated them until I started cooking and eating fresh ones rather then those things my mom would always reheat out of a jar. I'm a great believer that most vegetables people hate translate to "you've just been eating them wrong" meaning cooked the wrong way. That seems to work with a lot of things... except maybe okra... in my husbands' case. I did plant some two years ago but it mysteriously never came up. I don't know whether he had something to do with that or not, it remains a mystery. Beets however don't need any persuading around our house and I've got a simple traditional Indian recipe that makes cooking them a snap.

Beets With Indian Spices

Here's What You Need: 

2 or 3 large beets
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
10 curry leaves (optional)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp Kashmiri chili powder  (or 1/4 tsp paprika mixed with 1/4 tsp cayenne which can in a pinch be a substitute)
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs vegetable oil (I use coconut oil)


Here's What To Do:
 
The first thing to do is prep your beets , The easiest way to do that is to roast them. This is how to do it with the least muss and fuss. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees

1: Wash the beets off and dry them.
2 : Trim the beet tops to about an inch.
3: Rub the beets with some vegetable oil and wrap them individually in  foil this prevents beet leakage which can make ones oven resemble a murder scene.
4: Place the wrapped beets on a cookie sheet and bake them for about 45 minutes to an hour. Unwrap them a bit to check. When a fork goes into them easily they're done.
5: Either unwrap them and let them cool, to use them immediately.  Or keep them wrapped and cool them on the counter then place them in the fridge overnight for use the next day.

Now that the beets are roasted here's what's next.

WARNING: These beets are going to leak either way the minute you cut into them, so I usually use surgical gloves that one can get at any drugstore when working with them. I have a box of them for culinary use for beets and chilies.

Cut the tops off the beets.
Cut the bottom off the beets.
You can at this point slip the skin off of them with a paring knife or just trim it away easily.
Naked beets!
Cut the beets into small cubes, about 1/2 inch.

Get  your spices ready, because this dish cooks up pretty fast once the beets are roasted.

In a skillet or kadhai heat the vegetable oil.
When the oil is hot  toss in the mustard seeds and the curry leaves if you are using them.

When the mustard seeds start to pop and the curry leaves sizzle toss in the beets.

Turn the heat down to medium and add in the turmeric.

Stir it around well, then cover the pan and let things cook for about 5 minutes.

Take the lid off, give things a good stir and add in the salt and chili.

Keep the lid off the pan and cook for another 5  minutes or so. You want to make sure everything is well blended and nothing is sticking or burning, so give it a good stir every now and then.
When the beets are nice and tender, they're good to go.
Take out the curry leaves and dish them up.

I have several of these tiffin boxes which fit perfectly into my bike basket for an Indian picnic... HOWEVER, since it was pouring rain outside we just ate in the kitchen. They're mighty cute little boxes though.

 So there it is, a simple easy to fix Indian side dish, which goes really well with any other sort of food you're cooking, Indian or not. It may just change your mind about beets. Coming up next, working my way through the root cellar (wish I had one) Follow along on
Twitter @kathygori

I Got Yer Beets! Right Here!

   I love this picture. It reminds me of a WWII poster.."Beat the Nazis With Beets! Grow A Victory Garden Today!" It's also very old skool Soviet Union. "Eat More Borscht Comrades!"  How did it come about? I was fixing this beet dish and I shoved the bowl at Alan while standing under the  kitchen skylight. He took the picture.
   I had been looking for a cooling easy summer salad to go with a spicy goat vindaloo lunch I was planning. I cruised the vegetable stands of our local Farmer's Market looking for something to catch my eye. It had to be tasty, colorful and cooling to go up against all the chilies I'd be using, and above all, easy. I needed a dish that could be made ahead of time (like the day before) that would still taste fresh the day I was serving it.
  I looked at okra. Okra was dicey (hhmm diced okra?) considering I've only successfully managed to get it into Alan once. Scratch the okra. Pea shoots are always good but I do those too often. Gotta keep the mystery happening. Cold spinach with peanut powder and coconut, also too familiar around here. Then I saw the beets. Beets, the dish that you can use twice. First cook the beets, then cook the greens. I figured that I could save the greens and just use the beet part for my  purposes. I'd make a cooling salad of finely chopped glazed beets and mustard seed which is exactly what I did.
  Let me state at the beginning that one good reason to make this salad ahead of time, besides taking some of the work load off the main event day, is to be able to serve food without looking like a serial killer, or an extra off Dexter. Beets do bleed...nothing you can do about that. At least it's a bit of a break to give it a day to rub off.

Beet Salad

Here's what to do:
 Wash and dry 1 and 1/2 lbs of beets.
 Cut them into thin strips

  Put the beets into a large skillet or kadhai.
  Add:
  water to just cover the beets

  1/2 tsp of turmeric

 Bring it all to a boil and cook that way for about 7 to 10 minutes, or until the beets are cooked through but still firm.
 Drain the beets and set them aside.
 Heat 2 Tbs of vegetable oil in a skillet or kadhai.
 When the oil is hot add in:
  1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
 When the mustard seeds start popping, add in the beets and cook them for about a minute or until they're nice and coated with the oil and mustard seeds.

 Sprinkle the beets with:
  1 tsp Kosher salt
  1 tsp of sugar

  Stir them around for another minute, then take them off the fire. You are done.
 Check them for seasoning and serve them up.

  These beets can be served warm, at room temperature or chilled. Who doesn't like something this versatile? They'll  keep in the fridge covered for a couple of days, but chances are they'll be long gone before that. These are so fast to make and so tasty that they'll easily fit into the barbeque season menu. Perfect for potlucks, they're a natural for picnics and all the rest of this Summers' activities.
   I'm pretty excited to be participating in Goaterie next month. Click on the word and read all about it. In a nutshell, it's a Goatapalooza writ large! All goat all the time. As you can see, I proudly display the Billy Badge on my website. I'm joining this goat roping and can't wait to see all the goaty delights ( goat meat, goat cheese, goat milk) being whipped up by others during the month of July.
  Check it out and join the party. Meanwhile, coming up next, I'll be showing some great non-goat dishes, perfect for summer dining . Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Beet It!

Yesterday I was over the moon that I'd found a new South Asian Market here in Sonoma county. As I think I'd mentioned before we have only ONE Indian market in the entire county and they're not always the best stocked. It's the thing I do miss about Los Angeles. Ready access to good ethnic grocers.
I needed to go over to Santa Rosa yesterday which is a 50 mile round trip for me and so while there I of course had to go shopping at the Asian Market on Petaluma Hill Road.
I know that compared to what I'm used to in LA this was nothing special..but here..in Sonoma???? Yikes! I thought my head was going to explode.
Rows and rows of delectable goodies. Fresh coconut, taro, banana flower, a dozen varieties of rice, canned green jackfruit, basil seed! Things I'd been merely dreaming of finding here in Sonoma, or had resigned myself to dragging back from my next business trip to LA were within my eager little grasp. I went nuts and snapped up all sorts of interesting things, so why then is this blog post about beets? Because I have beets.
I have beets. I mean that in a good way, but also in a "what was I thinking?" way. I usually think of beets in two ways. Roasted in the fall, and as a salad with beet greens and feta cheese in the spring. Beets are also something that I don't usually associate with Indian food. That being said I did run across a great recipe for a Sri Lankan beet dish in Mangoes and Curry Leaves.
There were great baby beets at the farmers market the other day and for me baby vegetables are like puppies. I can't resist them..they're just so cute!
So, being a good ex-Catholic schoolgirl, I decided to put my banana flower and jackfruit away for another day and eat my beets first. Here's what I did:
I had 1 lb of small beets.
1.) Peel them. NOTE: conventional wisdom says to wear gloves while doing this so as not to look like you've just killed someone when you're done. The thinking here is that if your fingers get stained the red color will last for a day or so. However, not one to wear gloves for this task I can tell you that you can scrub your hands with warm water and baking soda and it should take the red stain right out. At least, it did so for me. Gloves? Ha! I scoff at gloves!
2.) chop them into thin julienne strips.
3.) Finely chop 2 Tbs of green serrano chilis
4.) Finely chop 3 Tbs of shallots
5.) 4 curry leaves
6.) In a deep skillet or karahi heat about 2 Tbs of oil
7.) when the oil is hot add in the chopped chilis and shallots, stir them around for about 3 minutes or so.

8.) Add in your beets and
9.) 1 Tbs of rice vinegar
10.) 1 tsp of salt
11.) 3/4 tsp of sugar.


Mix it well it will start to boil then add
12.) 1/4 cup of coconut milk
1/4 cup of water.


Bring it all to a boil, put a tight lid on your pan and lower the heat to a strong simmer. Leave it like that for about 15 to 20 minutes. Check it after about 10 minutes to stir it up and see how it's doing, you may need to add a bit of water at this time to keep it from sticking.
13.) When your beets are soft throw in 4 more curry leaves and
14.) another 1/4 cup of coconut milk.
Mix it up to heat through for another 2 or 3 minutes, and you're done!
Stir the mixture up mix it well, serve.
This beet dish was amazing and the technique works the same for other root vegetables, most notably carrots. This may just make your picky beet eaters change their minds about beets on the plate.
I may tackle the Banana flower tomorrow, I've stumbled across a great recipe that combines it with prawns. Having just seen District 9 however, I may have to amend that dish.