Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese

I must admit that beets aren't my favorite, and I'm trying not to let my kids catch on. I mean, they're sweet. They're such a bold, pretty color. Shouldn't kids be attracted to beets? Shouldn't I? But I keep persisting, thanks to our CSA, in trying to make delicious beet recipes. I doubt I'd go out and buy beets, but when they show up in our share, I figure I'm obliged to try to enjoy them.

This time I decided on Roasted Beets with Goat Cheese, borrowing quite heavily from this recipe. Not my favorite food picture ever, but my kids were pretty amused that I'd used the flowered dessert plates to make the beets look like a flower.


Here is the recipe with my changes:

Ingredients:

2 bunches of small-ish beets (about 8-10 beets)
4 small eating onions from the CSA (about 1/3 cup minced) (you could substitute regular onion or shallots)
3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
plenty of crumbled goat cheese (for those eating local in MA, I'm in love with Capri goat cheese from Westfield Farm)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Remove any beet greens, leaving a small amount of stem. Wash the beets and place in a baking dish. Toss with some olive oil until lightly coated. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil (or a lid) and bake about 45 minutes to an hour, until beets are easily pierced by a fork.

While the beets are roasting, mix together all the other ingredients besides the goat cheese. Set aside.

After beets have cooled slightly, cut off the top and bottom and use your fingers to remove the skin. Slice thinly into rounds.

Place the beets onto a serving dish and top with the vinaigrette and crumbled goat cheese.

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These were the most delicious beets I've ever eaten. They got rave reviews from everyone who tried them, which unfortunately did not include our children, who are persisting in their vegetable ban.

Tofu with swiss chard; Beets & greens

This is a recipe we've been making for a few years. The wife informs me that she made it up herself by adapting a recipe from the first CSA we joined several years ago. It's a good mix of flavors and very nutritious- along with the beet greens I made, apparently this meal includes two of the top three foods we should eat more of, although it seems I'm a bad person for cooking my beets. The other thing about beets is that they can result in interesting visual effects one to two days later, but since this is a family blog I won't post pictures of that.
First, preparing the beets for cooking- I like cooking beats with their greens because the leaves usually have a salty/bitter flavor that goes well with the sweet root. I cut the pointy part of the root off, then cut at the base of the stem and got rid of the tough stems while keeping the leaves:

Next, I thinly sliced the roots to make them easier to cook through. Cooking them until they are just slightly browned gives them a good crisp outside-soft inside, but again is probably evil health-wise:

Now for the main dish:
1 lb firm tofu
1 large onion
1 bunch swiss chard
1 large tomato
fresh herbs (basil, oregano)
olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 lb pasta (I did spaghetti)
Here's everything laid out for slicing- this is a double recipe, and my onions were small (2 red, one white) so I used 3. The tomatoes and chard were from the Kendall farmer's market and the herbs from the porch (see the previously-photographed plant, which is getting larger each week.) The chard leaves got the same treatment as the beet greens, removing the stems. In fact, I had some deja vu cutting up the chard since it was of the red variety; It's easy to tell the difference by taste, since chard is more cabbage-like as opposed to the aforementioned salty/bitter beet greens.

First, dice the garlic and saute in the olive oil. Then add the onion and cook until somewhat tender, but not too much since there's more cooking ahead. Next add the tofu, toss, and cook about 5 minutes so it firms up, especially if you're not using extra firm. Next come the greens- whenever we cook greens we always overestimate the amount we'll be able to fit into the pot. They always cook down, as you can see from the before and after shots below of both the main dish and the beet greens.



The key is to carefully invert everything so your already cooked stuff ends up on the top and the greens are under it exposed to heat. Cover and cook a few minutes until the greens are darker and more tender. Last add the tomato and chopped herbs, toss and cook about 2-3 more minutes. The tomato's juice along with the water from the greens will make something like a watery sauce. Serve over the pasta. For the kids we kept everything segregated, with uncooked tofu, which they prefer over tofu that "has stuff on it- wash it off!" Also, again with the non-local corn- some people don't like the starch overload of pasta and corn at the same meal, but having both increases the odds that the kids will eat something. Don't let the dog get the corn cob, though.

Swiss Chard with Beets, Goat Cheese, and Raisins

This is the first summer in many years we haven't joined a CSA. We've tried a couple different ones, but haven't found the right fit, so this season we decided to just shop at farmers' markets instead. When I go to a farmers' market, though, I mostly see vegetables I don't know how to cook, and tend not to buy much. I decided that this year, I need to see the market like a CSA share, where you just get what's there and then you figure out how to cook it.

I hadn't yet determined when I was going to fit farmers' market shopping into my summer schedule, but ended up making plans with fellow blogger Lee to go to Drumlin Farm with the kids. They have a farm stand right by the entrance, so I got to do my vegetable shopping and have a fun outing with the kids all at once. Being early in the season, there wasn't much there, but I left with two bunches of swiss chard, a bunch of beets, scallions, and basil.

I poked around a few cookbooks looking for a good recipe, but couldn't find many main dishes that involved swiss chard. Next, I turned to Google, and after searching for swiss chard and beets found this recipe for Swiss Chard with Beets, Goat Cheese, and Raisins.

Even though the ingredient list was simple, I was intimidated at first by all the steps involved, but it turned out to be fairly easy to cook. It was definitely time-consuming, since roasting the beets took an hour, but most of the time was spent waiting, and it was an easy recipe to start and stop while dealing with the continuous needs of young children.  It can also be served either cold or at room temperature, so it could easily be prepared ahead of time.

I'll admit that I didn't have very high hopes for this recipe. The first thing I started cooking in the pot were the chopped up stalks of chard, and it just didn't look very appetizing. It didn't necessarily look any more attractive as I added in the other ingredients. By the end, though, when I had topped it with the beets, goat cheese, and pine nuts, it looked a lot better, though I was still doubtful about how good it would taste.




The recipe didn't mention serving it with anything, but I thought it needed some starch to go with it, so I made a pot of quinoa and we also had a loaf of bread. The meal seemed to have minimal protein, so I added more pine nuts than the recipe suggested to boost that a bit.

My kids aren't too picky, but my oldest (age 3.5) will often reject entire meals if he doesn't like one ingredient, so I try to make minor accommodations when I'm serving a one-pot kind of meal. I gave the kids each two plates. One had the food we were eating, and the other had a selection of the ingredients separated: raisins, beets, goat cheese, and pine nuts.



The results were surprisingly good. My husband's first reaction, sounding very much like my preschooler, was that there were too many different things in it, but after a few bites he changed his mind and decided he really liked it. The dish was surprising sweet, probably because of the raisins, and the goat cheese added creaminess while the pine nuts added some crunch. The kids barely touched the plates of mixed food, but ate a good amount from their separated plates, although neither was very fond of the beets.

I definitely plan to make this recipe again, but would make a few changes. I felt like the beets didn't add too much to the final meal, so I'd probably leave that out next time. They were a pain to prepare since after they were roasted, I had to wait for them to cool and then peel and chop them, which was all very messy. I would probably also prepare a simple protein side dish, since I feel like the meal was weak on protein. Overall, though, it was a success and a great start to our summer of cooking with local vegetables.