Monday, March 26, 2012

Nurturing my Love

I have been neglecting the beet.
More truthfully, I have been neglecting writing about the beet.
I have been cooking beet dishes a few times a month, whether it be borscht, or roasted beets with chevre and walnuts or simply an assortment of roasted fall vegetables.  I have even been photographing them, but some where between moving the images from my camera and actually writing about it, it just seems like too much time has passed.

I am eating beets right now.
Now is the time to write.

I am eating the few left overs from my new favorite beet recipe that I found between the covers of a book entitled Plenty; One Man, One Woman and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally.  I admit I was skeptical.  It only calls for five ingredients and three of those are disliked in my family.  Beets are marginally disliked by my husband, blue cheese is marginally disliked by me, and mashed potatoes which often are left uneaten by Ivory.  I tried the recipe anyway.

Potato Amuse Bouche
1 large Beet, Peeled
1 large Mashing Potato, pared and cuped
3 Tbsp Blue Cheese
1 Tbsp Unsweetened Applesauce
1 Tbsp Butter
Slice beets into 1/4 inch rounds.  Steam until tender throughout and set aside.  Boil potato until soft.  Strain, reserving 1 cup of cooking liquid.  Mash with blue cheese, adding cooking liquid as needed to achieve a creamy consistency.  Spoon balls of potato mixture onto a cookie sheet and roast on the highest rack in the oven until golden.  Meanwhile, melt butter in a small saucepan and stir together over low heat. Cut beet slices into triangles or hearts, or leave as rounds.  Place a potato ball in the middle of each beet slice.  Drizzle with apple butter.  Serve in the center of a very large place, alone and a little heart breaking. 

I loved it, and to my delight, so did the remainder of the family.
The first time I tried this recipe, the only change I made was doubling the quantities.
The second time around, I used half potato and half sweet potato.
I make as much of the apple butter sauce as needed, sometimes I even make more in the middle of the meal.  I love cracking open the jars of apple sauce I canned last fall.  The sauce is tart and bright.  Every time I take a taste I remember shaking the apples off the tree while Ivory and Sylvan sat on a blanket and then Ivory rushed around to pick up the fallen treasures.  We finish the remainder of the applesauce as dessert.
Adam sprinkles extra little crumbs of blue cheese on his plate.

Both times that I have carried out the serving plate laden with the beautiful deep red disks topped with golden potato balls drizzled in an equally golden sauce Ivory has proclaimed:  "Yuck, that looks gross".  Soon after, she sits there her plate and mouth still full, waving her fork frantically at the serving platter in the center of the table:  "Mama and Papa, don't eat those.  I want them".  Only after I assure her that there is a whole other plate waiting to be eaten in the kitchen does she allow us to eat seconds.

More beets are sitting in the fridge, waiting to be roasted, pealed and tossed into a bowl filled with mixed salad green, orange slices, toasted walnuts and feta cheese.   I can smell the scent of roasting beets wafting through the  house all ready, or it could just be the beets I'm eating.


1 comment:

  1. Someday all too soon, Ivory will be saying, "every time I open a jar of applesauce, I remember how Sylvan and I helped Mom gather apples for homemade applesauce." Lucky children.

    ReplyDelete

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