Beet It!

Growing up, I hated beets.

And rightfully so.  My kind, sweet mother would feed us those horrid little suckers right out of the can or she would boil them even further.  The result was a nasty, tinny glob of redness that would have me sitting at the table praying that the dog would move just a bit closer so I could drop them to the floor.  Then again, even my pup had taste.

It wasn't until I had done growed up that I realized how delicious these ruby colored bulbs of joy could be.  Sweet and slightly earthy tasting, beets are great to added to a salad, used as a star ingredient in a soup, or roasted up as the main event.

Since you're going meatless anyway, why not try roasting up some fresh beets tonight...

Roasted Beets with Pistachio, Blueberry and Rosemary Pesto

So yummy.  So good for you, too!

This bright "pesto" is a great pairing with the beets.  Try serving with sauteed beet greens or a simple arugula salad with balsamic to make it a meal.


1 1/2 lbs beets
1/4 cup pistachios
3 oz dried blueberries
1 garlic clove
2 Tbl fresh rosemary
juice of 1 lemon
4 Tbl olive oil

Preheat oven to 425.  Wash beets thoroughly and remove stems. (You can saute up those greens with a bit of garlic and balsamic...yum!)  Wrap beets securely in aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet. Roast those bad boys for about 45 minutes. 

In a food processor, combine pistachios, blueberries, garlic, rosemary, and 2 Tbl olive oil.  Pulse until coarsely chopped.  Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in lemon juice and remaining 2 Tbl oil.  Season with salt and pepper.

Remove beets from oven carefully as some beet juice may have escaped the foil.  You are so happy you put them on a baking sheet now, aren't you? Allow beets to cool until they are easily handled.  Rub beets to remove skin. Your hands will look like a very special episode of Dexter.  Slice beets and top with pesto.

If you are feeling truly madcap (Nicole...ignore this part), serve with the tee-tinsiest bit of (Nicole...look away) goat cheese (I had to!).

Confessions of a Theatre Widow

When one is in a relationship with a theatre artist, one must reside oneself to frequent solitary evenings.  While the ones you enjoy the most are off being creative, you are left to be alone with your thoughts...or thought.

You are a theatre widow.

Or, if you are in the South, a thee-A-ter widduh.

To pass the time, you have folded all the laundry, answered emails, walked the pup, surfed the interweb, caught up on your TiVo, finished the great American novel, and called everyone you can think of only to be greeted by recorded voices because they too are in rehearsals.

*sigh*

There is only so much Battlestar Galactica you can watch in one sitting.

So instead of throwing yourself that all too familiar pity party, get cookin' instead and treat the ones you love to a post rehearsal, late nite supper!

You can still eat well, even though it's late.  Remember, food is not feed!


Roasted Beet and Grapefruit Salad

I just love me a beet.

If your beet greens aren't too tired, try throwing them into the mix!

Some spinach
Some arugula
3 beets
1 red grapefruit
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups garbanzo beans
Pistachios
Goat cheese
Garlic, 2 cloves
Thyme bundle
Chili oil
Salt and pepper

Grapefruit Tarragon Vinaigrette (recipe follows)


Preheat oven to 450.  Trim and peel beets.  Using a sharp knife, cut beets into small cubes (about 1").  Transfer beets to a baking sheet along with the whole garlic cloves and thyme bundle.  Drizzle with oil and season liberally with salt and pepper.  Toss to coat and throw in the oven for 20 minutes or until beets are caramelized and tender.  Discard garlic and thyme, and allow to come to room temperature.

Slice each end off the grapefruit to give you a steady cutting situation. Using a sharp knife, remove rind and pith.  Segment the grapefruit and place in a bowl squeezing any remaining juice out of that sucker.

In a large bowl, toss greens, onions, and garbanzos in vinaigrette.  Transfer to individual plates and top with beets, grapefruit, goat cheese and a sprinkle of pistachios.


Grapefruit Tarragon Vinaigrette

This is a damn good salad!

Juice of 1 grapefruit
1 Tbl grapefruit zest
1 Tbl fresh tarragon
1 tsp tarragon vinegar
1 small shallot, diced
1 glove garlic, minced
1 Tbl stone ground mustard
3/4 cup olive oil
salt 'n pepper

In a small food processor, puree all of the ingredients excluding the oil.  With the motor running, slowly drizzle in oil.  Deliciousness.



Chilled Fennel and Carrot Soup with Tarragon

Once pureed the soup takes on a delightfully creamy texture (and not a drop of cream in sight), perfect for a late nite supper or as a first course for lunch.  Serve warm in the fall/winter months...it's tasty hot, too!

1 medium fennel bulb, sliced
8 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 Tbl tarragon vinegar
1 1/2 Tbl tarragon
1 Tbl fennel fronds
4 cups chicken stock (or water)
Thyme bundle
2 Tbl olive oil
Salt 'n pepper

In a large stockpot, heat oil over medium flame.  Add onions, fennel, and thyme bundle and saute for 5-7 minutes.  De glaze with vinegar and reduce liquid by at least half.  Add carrots and cook for an additional 10 minutes until carrots begin to soften.  Add chicken stock and bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce heat.  Add fresh tarragon and fennel fronds and simmer for 10 minutes. Take off heat and discard thyme.

Puree soup with an immersion blender (or working in small batches with a conventional blender).  Pass soup through a sieve.  Chill for 2 hours.

My Life with Snow White

Oh my God!  You cook like one of the seven dwarfs!

This is what my Valentine exclaimed as he entered the kitchen.

Naturally, this made me Happy.  Clearly J understands how joyous my time dancing around a soup pot makes me.  However, I quickly felt Dopey when I realized he was talking about the disastrous state in which I had left the kitchen.  I became a little Grumpy for surely he knows that I am never Bashful when I am concocting culinary delights for us.  I may be a little Sneezy from being heavy handed on the pepper.  Maybe I should see a Doc and get my head looked at.

Whatever.

You can whistle while you clean up the kitchen, Snow White, Sleepy's going to bed.

Note
J exclaimed this with a loving smile in his voice.  He has also described me as a crafty whirling dervish who scurries about gathering up everything I see and throws it all up in the air expecting fireworks.  When I get fireworks, it's sublime.  When no fireworks occur, I harrumph and start all over again in hopes of making an even bigger light display...which I think is pretty swell.


Beet and Caramelized Onion Tarts


2 beets
1 yellow onion, sliced
4 Tbl butter
2 Tbl chili oil
3 sprigs rosemary
1 tsp ground sage
1 1/2 cups water
2/3 cup sugar
salt n' pepper
1 sheet puff pastry
Shaved pecorino (or crumbled bleu or goat cheese)

For the onions
In a small sauce pan, heat butter and oil over low heat until butter melts.  Stir in sage and add rosemary sprigs.  Add sliced onions and stir to coat.  Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.  Cook over low heat, stirring about every five minutes until onions are nice and caramelized (about 30 minutes).  Remove rosemary stems and discard.

For the beets
In a small sauce pan, bring water, sugar, 1 1/2 Tbl salt, and 1 Tbl freshly ground pepper to a boil.  Wash and peel the beets.  Using a mandolin, slice beets into thin disks.  Add beets to the pot and cook for 3 minutes.  Turn off heat and allow beats to remain in the hot liquid for an additional 2 minutes.  Strain beets and separate them to dry completely.

For the tarts
Preheat oven to 400. Defrost puff pastry according to directions.  On a lightly floured board, cut pastry into four rectangles and roll out into approximately 5" by 4" tarts.  Using a knife, create a 1/2" border around the edge being careful not to  slice all the way through.  Inside the border, prick a gazillion holes with a fork to prevent pastry from rising.  Place on baking sheet

Layer beets into pastry, slightly overlapping.  Each tarts uses about 6 to 8 slices.  Using a spoon, spread a thin layer of the onions on top. Throw those suckers in the oven for about 20 minutes.  Take tarts out of oven and top with your choice of cheese.  Return to oven for an additional five minutes until cheese has melted.  Drizzle with a SMALL amount of balsamic.  Serve with wilted spinach and beet greens or a simple arugula salad.

Mmmmm...Cabbage Paste

My OCD struck again.

There I was. Sitting on my janky couch, watching TV, minding my own business. Then suddenly, out of the blue, it hit me like a thunder bolt: An overwhelming call to action, an inner Walt Whitman poem/Levi's commercial sounding a bugle call to glory, a culinary barbaric yawp singing from deep inside my soul that the very foundations of our country would crack if left unanswered.

"I want to make pate a choux. Nay...I need to make pate a choux."

I know, I know...this happened to you just the other day, no?

Actually what happened was someone on the Food Network made some and I had never made it before. And that, O Captain, My Captain, is that.

So...pate a choux (literally translated as "cabbage paste") is a basic pastry dough used to make cream puffs, eclairs, farts of nuns (I kid you not...look it up if you don't believe me), or Parisian gnocchi. It looks very fancy and impressive, and, after doing some research, it couldn't be easier to make. I'm very proud of my puffs.

Pate a Choux recipe

Don't get freaked out by this! I successfully made it on my first attempt...and I don't bake.

1 cup water

1 stick of butter

pinch of salt

1 cup of flour

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 425 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a sauce pan, bring water, salt, and butter to a simmer. Once heated, add all of the flour at once and stir in the same direction with a wooden spoon. It will look freaky to begin with, but it will turn into a lovely little ball of dough in no time. You want to cook it until it dries out quite a bit. Take off heat and cool slightly

Transfer dough to food processor or mixing bowl, and add the eggs one at a time until dough is completely mixed and glossy. We're moving the dough again...this time to a piping bag. Or in my case, a gallon freezer bag with the end snipped off. Pipe out golf ball sized little poofs of love onto baking sheets. Don't they look kind of like little cabbages? Oh...I get the name now!

Damp your finger and give the little poofy tops a push down so they don't burn. Pop 'em in the oven for 10 minutes on 425, then lower temperature to 375 for 20 minutes.

One recipe said to prick each one to allow the steam to escape to prevent the puffs from getting soggy.

OKAY...

So now I have these puffs, but what the hell am I going to do with them?

I love the idea of a cream puff, but I'm not really a sweets kinda guy. I have some goat cheese in the fridge. And some beets...

Roasted Beets with Mixed Berry Pesto and Goat Cheese Cream Puffs

1 bunch beets (1-2 pounds), peeled and sliced into 1" cubes

1 clove garlic

Olive oil

Salt and Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450. Place beets and garlic in a sauce pan and cover with water. Bring beets to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Drain and pat dry. Transfer beets to a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 20-25 minutes.

Mixed Berry Pesto

1/2 cup dried mixed berries (cranberries, blueberries, cherries)

1/4 cup walnuts

1 clove garlic

1/4 cup fresh parsley

2 Tbl fresh mint

1 lemon, zest and juice

salt/pepper

1/2 cup olive oil

Combine ingredients in a food processor and whir away until mostly processed but it still retains some texture. Stir in some additional olive oil to make pesto a little more saucy. Serve over beets.

Goat Cheese filling

2 oz goat cheese, at room temp

2 Tbl sour cream

1 tsp horseradish

3 green onions chopped

a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

salt/pepper

Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl until smooth.

Slice puffs horizontally and spoon in a bit of the mixture. For the perfect bite...take a nibble after a fork full of beets and berry pesto.