Beet and Beet Green Risotto

After a day biking around DC and swimming/lounging at the East Potomac Park Bathhouse (sounds fancier than it is, but it's actually quite a nice pool!), we were ravenous. I recently acquired from the CSA a bunch of beets with greens still intact, so Amy and Chrissy both recommended the beet risotto from the NYTimes. Turns out we had all the ingredients, so we made it happen. Really good! Beautiful color. I would have added some feta or something cheesier to it, but it was pretty lovely as is, too, if feta's not your thang.

Pasta with Arugula Pesto, Toasted Walnuts, Goat Cheese and Beets

This was another "cleaning out the fridge" recipe, or "mixed grill" if you're the Real Martha. Sick of the usual arugula salad with beets, nuts and goat cheese, I decided to look up pasta recipes incorporating those ingredients.Thank you, Google Machine. You have delivered. Yet again.
Hearty, sweet, salty, garlicky. Mmm.

Arugula and Beet Salad with Fried Goat Cheese Discs, Roast Beef, Hazelnuts and Orange Vinaigrette

Riffing off of a number of different recipes, we pieced this healthy and very brightly colored salad together after checking out the cherry blossoms on this random 80 degree day.

We mixed together arugula, roasted beets, toasted hazelnuts, and orange segments, then we topped that with sliced roast beef and this orange vinaigrette from Cooking Light, and finally, we borrowed the crispy fried goat cheese discs from this John Besh recipe.

We give thumbs up to the recipe as a whole, but think that the roast beef may have been unnecessary, as it gets lost amid all of the other strong flavors in the salad.

Horovatz in Mer Nation's Capital

As I said last week, Tim hosted a mini Peace Corps Armenia reunion this weekend in mer nation's capital (i.e. DC)... having practiced some Armenian-style cooking last week, we were pretty well prepared to host the metz kev (big party) for a horovatz (BBQ).

Still using "Simply Armenian" by Barbara Ghazarian as the basis for our meal, we repeated the beet salad and minted cucumber and yogurt soup, improved upon the lamehjun by cooking it on a pre-heated baking stone at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes so it crisped up evenly all around, and made a couple new dishes to make sure everybody got enough to eat: grilled lamb skewers and pilaf. Recipes after the jump!

Sunday Dinner: Armenian Meal

Tim's friends from Peace Corps Armenia are coming into town next weekend, so he wanted to cook an Armenian meal for them. But he wanted to practice first, which is where we came in. This week's Sunday dinner was an Armenian feast: minted cucumber and yogurt soup, beet and walnut salad, lahmahjoon/lamejun (basically Armenian lamb pizzas), and apricot cake. We based all of the recipes off of a cookbook Andrea gave Tim for Christmas: Simply Armenian, by Barbara Ghazarian. Recipes after the jump!

Warm Orzo Salad with Beets, Feta, Spinach and Pine Nuts

Dudes... so I went into tonight's dinner with fairly low expectations, but ultimately I was blown away. It's so good! Even Tim, who merely tolerates beets, really liked it.
I combed the internets for a recipe to use up some ingredients I had in the fridge: beets on their last leg, a ginormous block of feta that needed to be whittled down. I found this recipe for a warm orzo salad with beets, feta and pine nuts on The Parsley Thief, via Foodgawker, and thought it might be a decent way to go, with a few substitutions (namely frozen spinach for beet greens, which didn't come attached to my beets).

Wow, this salad came out great... crazy florescent color (you cook the orzo- or "orzu," as Tim calls it- in the water leftover from boiling the beets), a little sweet, a little salty, earthy, garlicky. Pretty healthy, too!

Beet and Goat Cheese Gnocchi

As a result of my overzealous CSA shopping, I have more Pipe Dreams goat cheese than I know what to do with. Luckily, Alejandra from Always Order Dessert posted a beet/goat cheese gnocchi recipe earlier this week that used up a decent amount of goat cheese and looked amazing to boot. The pink color of the gnocchi really caught my attention, as did the browned butter sauce. You know how I feel about browned butter.I made gnocchi (sweet potato) once before, in the early days of this blog, and while they were decent, they were a little dense and a little bit of a pain in the butt. Alejandra's gnocchi looked light and fluffy, so I thought I would give gnocchi another try... these were super satisfying, despite the fact that when I made them, they looked like little pieces of tuna sashimi! They had the sweet earthiness from the beets and a slight tang from the goat cheese. Plus the brown butter... brrrooooowwwwwnnn buuuuuuttterrrrr....

Jenny Said It Couldn't Be Done: Chocolate Beet Cake

Colleen sent several of us a link to this blog that she had stumbled upon, which, at the time, had an interesting recipe front and center for a chocolate cake made with beet puree. Jenny expressed extreme distaste for and disbelief about the quality of the recipe, claiming a chocolate cake made with beets could never be good. Her exact words were "But seriously, did you notice the first recipe on that blog - chocolate beet cake -- why ruin chocolate like that! I can't believe that it would actually be good?!"

That sounded like a challenge to me! I knew it was only a matter of time before I gave it a try...

This week I found myself with 5 or 6 beets from the CSA languishing in my veggie crisper after a long winter full of root veggies, and I knew it would be a tough sell to serve them to the troops straight up. This was the perfect setting for attempting to prove Jenny wrong...

This is a pretty basic chocolate cake, with a spice cake twist from the cinnamon and nutmeg. I don't think that anyone eating the final product would have guessed that beets were in there, unless they had seen the maroon-y color of the batter prior to being baked. The beets lend a great moistness to the cake, much like adding carrots, applesauce, bananas, or some other sweet fruit or veggie to a cake or bread. Maybe it could be a little more chocolate-y for my taste, but otherwise it was really good. Jennifer suggested that perhaps a magenta beet frosting or glaze would be a nice addition.

I don't think Jenny will accept the results of this experiment as valid until she gets a slice of her own, so I'll have to remake the cake next time I get together with her. Doubting Jenny, be prepared!

Jicama, Beet, Carrot and Orange Salad

I made this crunchy, healthy salad to compliment/counteract the spicy richness of the smoky shrimp, hominy and tortilla soup. I used clementines rather than navel oranges because that's what I had in the house. Fresh, crunchy, good for you and very pretty to look at...

Crispy Beet Chips

I love the beet chips that come in the mixed veggie chip packs, so when I saw this recipe for baked beet chips in the latest issue of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, I thought I would give it a try.

The chips are really tasty- sweet, salty and crispy. I did have some problems getting them to crisp evenly, but I think that's my inexperience with my mandoline. These are a great snack, though, and pretty healthy- just a little bit of olive oil and some sea salt.

Beet and Potato Fritter/Latke

I had a bunch of leftover roasted beets from this salad, and also needed to use up some of the plethora of purple potatoes I've gotten from the CSA recently, so I thought this beet and potato latke/pancake/fritter thing would be a good idea.

It's hard to see from the photo, but I made one large frying pan size fritter, and cut it into fourths.

This was pretty good- it toned down the super sweetness of the beets and gave them a nice crispy outside. I added some herbs to the fritter: parsley and cilantro, based on the flavors from Eileen's famous beet dip. I served it with a lime cilantro sour cream to brighten it up, and sprinkled it all with toasted walnuts.

Beet, Walnut, Goat Cheese, Arugula Salad

As a starter for our tortellini-stuffed squash, I made this other fall favorite: a roasted beet salad with toasted walnuts, crumbled goat cheese and arugula. Lots of different textures and complimentary flavors!

Served with a shallot/red wine vinegar dressing (to which I added a little bit of dijon mustard, to help keep it emulsified).

Beet Dip!

My good friend and former co-worker, Eileen, has made it her life's mission to convert beet-haters into beet-lovers, one at a time. Her chief means of accomplishing this end is a delicious, herby, garlicy, bright magenta beet dip...

Mission accomplished!

There are at least 3 beet converts living at 1346 today...*

Eileen says she originally got this recipe from Nigella Lawson, the buxom British television chef. I wasn't able to find the recipe online, so I'm giving you the adapted version that Eileen passed on to me. So easy, so good, so pretty:

BEET DIP

1 lb. raw beets

1/2 C crushed walnuts

2-3 cloves garlic

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 C chopped parsley

1/2 C chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 tsp coriander

3 T red wine vinegar

1) preheat over to 425

2) wash beets, wrap in aluminum foil, leaving some space around the beets, but wrapping the edges closed tightly.

3) roast beets for 1-2 hours, until you can smoothly poke a fork through

4) while beets are roasting, use food processor to chop cloves of garlic.

5) add walnuts and salt and pepper, chop.

6) add parsley, cilantro, coriander.

7) peel and cube beets and add to food processor.

8) blend together, add vinegar.

9) chill for a while.

10) serve with crackers, pita, whatever

*Note to beginner beet eaters: be wary the magenta beet stains on hands and clothes. Be doubly wary the magenta poop.

Deliciously local...

Yum... spinach, beet, goat cheese, walnut and dried cranberry salad. This is our new standard salad. Even better with chopped apples instead of the cranberries. With balsamic vinaigrette.

Homemade bread and local sharp cheddar cheese from Whispering Brook Cheese Haus, grilled. Mmm.

Curried parsnip soup with apples... parsnips and apples care of my CSA.