Beet Carpaccio Salad

So you may notice that some of my recipes posted near each other in time have some of the same ingredients. Like the Carrot and Parsnip Salad and the Fettuccine with Parsnip Ribbons. Or the Spinach and Brown Rice Pilaf with Feta and the Zucchini Pancakes (which contain feta). The reason for this is that I often wind up using only part of a specific ingredient, and then go in search of something else to use the leftovers in. That is what happened with the beets, and is why this is your second beet recipe this week. Thankfully the golden beet is more versatile than one might imagine, and lends itself to some creative cooking.

Creative is just what I'd call this recipe, as carpaccio usually involves raw beef, not cooked beets. In the original dish, beef is pounded or sliced very thinly and served raw, topped with a mustard or tangy vinaigrette sauce. As best I can tell, that is - I've never had the dish myself, and vegetarian me never will. Today's beet version plays off of the carpaccio idea by having you make very thin slices of roasted beet, and topping them with a tapenade-like tangy caper and onion mixture. The whole thing is served atop a bed of peppery baby arugula.

Beet Carpaccio Salad
Adapted from A Veggie Venture and Bon Appetit
Serves 4
Printable Version

Ingredients:
2 medium golden beets
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling
4 tablespoons red onion, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons capers
5 tablespoons chives, chopped
2 hard cooked eggs, chopped
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 ounces baby arugula

Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Wash and scrub beets. Place in a roasting pan and coat with one tablespoon olive oil and one teaspoon salt. Roast in oven until outside of beets will yield easily to a knife, about an hour. Remove from oven and let cool. When cool enough to handle, use a table knife to peel away the beets' skin. Using a mandoline or a sharp knife, cut beets into very thin slices. Set aside.
In a small bowl, stir together onion, capers, chives, eggs, remaining tablespoon of olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper.
Spread the arugula out on the four serving plates. Arrange the beets in a circle on top of the arugula. Place a generous spoonful of the egg mixture in the center of the beets. Drizzle a small amount of extra virgin olive oil atop plate, if desired.

Verdict? Love this. If only because it is one of the more creative/innovative/unique dishes I've made in a while. Serve this as a light meal on its own, or as an impressive starter for a main course with bold flavors.

Golden Beets and Brussels Sprouts

This post goes out to my friend Adam, who shares my fondness for golden beets. They really are quite special.  Well, I suppose beets are pretty neat in general.  They look so unassuming in the stores, often stripped of their greenery tops and looking brownish from growing up in dirt.  But take them home and scrub away the soil, and you will be rewarded with their goodness.  Golden beets are even more special, as they won't stain your hands when working with them (a big plus, trust me), and taste (at least to me) a bit more buttery/subtly sweet than their crimson cousins.

This is the first recipe I tried them in, found after randomly picking up both golden beets and brussels sprouts (something I haven't eaten since I was a child) at the store one day.  I discovered a love for the beets, and rediscovered brussels sprouts, all in this one very simple dish: oven roasted beets meet parboiled brussels sprouts accompanied by shallots and herbs.

Golden Beets and Brussels Sprouts
Adapted from We [Heart] Food (another great blog name, no?), via Simply Recipes
Serves 3-4
Printable version


Ingredients:
3 medium/large golden beets
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
kosher salt
10 large, fresh brussels sprouts
2 shallots, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped (or 1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Wash and scrub beets.  Place in a roasting pan and coat with one tablespoon olive oil and one teaspoon salt.  Roast in oven until outside of beets will yield easily to a knife, about an hour.  Remove from oven and let cool.  When cool enough to handle, use a table knife to peel away the beets' skin.  Cut beets into cubes about 1" to 1 1/2" on each side.
Remove outer layers of brussels sprouts until leaves appear tightly bunched and clean.  Trim bottoms of stems.
Fill a small saucepan halfway with generously salted water and bring to a boil.  Add the brussels sprouts and cook for 2-3 minutes, until almost fully cooked.  Drain and let cool.  When cool enough to handle, cut sprouts in half.
Add 1/2 tablespoon of oil to a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the shallots and cook until soft and translucent, being careful not to brown them.  Add a second 1/2 tablespoon of oil and raise the heat to medium-high.  Place the brussels sprouts in the skillet cut side down.  Let cook just until the surfaces begin to brown. 
Add the beets, thyme, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and black pepper.  Stir to combine.  Let cook for an additional minute or two.

Verdict?  A great tasting, healthy dish that is so simple to make.  I think it would also be great with a dollop of goat cheese on it.  I served it alongside some baked tofu.  I'm sure you can think of many other things that would make great company for the beets n' sprouts, too.

Scallion and Tofu Tortillita

I love wandering through the produce aisle at my food coop, as I always see something new.  The new discovery this week was something labeled "purple scallion."  Always a sucker for things in color, I buy a bunch.  I may be imagining things, but I think it has a bit more of a mild taste than the scallion I'm used to.

The dish I chose to use the scallion in - called a tortillita - was inspired by this NY Times article.  I love regular tortillas - not the flour/corn flat bready things you get with Mexican food, but the Spanish eggy version.  The tortillita is almost like a cross between a flour tortilla and an egg tortilla.  Almost.  Its unique taste comes from a unique ingredient - chick pea/garbanzo bean flour.  This is actually easier to find in stores than you might think.  I was even able to find it at my neighborhood mini-grocery.  Bob's Red Mill is the brand I found, so look around your store's section of their products. 

Modifications from the original:  This recipe just screams out for changes.  Look at the tortillita as a way to make use of leftovers in you refrigerator.  Although my recipe calls for baked tofu, you omnivores can use cooked meat/fish/seafood instead; the veg-heads can seitan or tempeh instead.  And you need not limit the vegetable to just scallion, try it with anything you have on hand from regular onions to leafy greens.  I think thin asparagus would also be great.  Change up the herbs you use, too - use whatever you have on hand, get creative!  Also - if you have any gluten-sensitive friends, this is a great dish to make for them, just replace the regular flour called for in the recipe with more chick pea flour.  (I actually think I might like the flavor of the tortillita made only with garbanzo flour better, though it is a bit less chewy.)  It is great for vegans, too~

I also thought this could use a tiny bit of an herbed mayonnaise sauce, because when I was in Spain I lived in an area where folks enjoyed their tortillas with mayo and now the two are inextricably linked in my mind.

Scallion and Tofu Tortillita
Inspired by Mark Bittman
Serves 4
Printable Version

Ingredients:
1/2 cup garbanzo bean flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/3 cup scallion, chopped
1/2 cup baked tofu, cut into small pieces
4 tablespoons parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons mayonnaise (regular or vegan)
olive oil, as needed

Method:
In a medium bowl, combine flours, salt, and pepper.  Stir in about 3/4 a cup of water, a little at a time, until the mixture forms a somewhat thin batter.  Use more water as needed; if you are using all garbanzo bean flour, you will need a bit over a cup of water.  Set aside and allow batter to rest as long as you can, up to an hour or two if available.
Meanwhile, chop the garlic, tofu, and herbs.  Stir 1 tablespoon of the parsley into the mayonnaise and set aside.
When ready to prepare tortillitas, lightly coat the bottom of a large non-stick skillet with olive oil.  Heat skillet over medium-high heat until oil shimmers.  Add green garlic, tofu, and remaining parsley into batter and stir to combine.
Pour half the batter into the prepared skillet and use a spoon to spread the tofu around to make sure it is evenly distributed.
Cook until edges are set, about 2-3 minutes.  Use a large spatula to flip the tortillita.  Cook other side for another 2-3 minutes more, until bottom is set.  Serve immediately, topped with a dollop of the sauce.

Verdict?  The best thing to happen to leftovers since the microwave.  Seriously.  It takes very little time to make this.  Although I recommend letting the batter sit for a while, you certainly won't lose much if you just go ahead and cook it right away.  This is a great way to take a few scraps in the refrigerator and make a great light meal, especially when served with a vinaigrette-topped green salad incorporating the herbs you chose for the tortillita...yum.

Beet and Potato Hash

Beets have been a relatively new addition to my diet. I don't recall them being around when I was a kid. As an adult I always just thought of them as those red things in salad bars. I liked them well enough, but that was about it.

One day I decided to buy some on a whim when I was food shopping, because they looked so pretty - in a happy earthy way. I just roasted them in olive oil with salt and rubbed the skins off when done. I ate these sliced over some mixed salad greens and was hooked.

My beet adventures have since continued, bringing us to this recipe. This comes to us by way of chow.com, originally titled "Red Flannel Hash." It was intended to be a breakfast recipe, but it made a wonderful dinner alongside a green salad with vinaigrette.

What's great about this recipe is that the ingredients store very well. This is the sort of recipe you can shop for a week or more ahead of time. Another thing that was great about this recipe? Eating it. I really enjoyed the homey feel of the pan-cooked potatoes mixed with the different texture and slightly sweet flavor from the beets. And everything is better with an egg on top, in my humble opinion...

Oh - I almost forgot! I made a special purchase for this meal: my first cast iron skillet. Unfortunately it isn't quite up to snuff as far as seasoning and having that lovely natural non-stick coating, so I experienced quite a bit of sticking. A way to avoid this would be to stir the hash more often, but don't do it so often as to prevent the potatoes from forming nice crunchy crusty bits; that is part of the point. If you don't have cast iron, any oven-proof skillet will do. Avoid rubber handles (that probably goes without saying) and non-stick coatings (which can become toxic when exposed to high temperatures such as used here). Look for more cast iron recipes soon, as I've been saving them up for when I finally got one!

Modifications from the original: I just used whatever kind of potatoes I had on hand - Russet, I think. I mixed red and golden beets. The color from the red beets still dominates everything, but there now are a few lovely yellow undertones as well. The original also calls for a half cup of chopped parsley to be stirred in just before the eggs - to be honest, I just forgot to do this and don't feel as though the dish suffered much. So if you have the parsley on hand, go for it (or any other fresh herb you're a fan of), if not - don't sweat it. Also - I added some other seasonings as detailed below. Unfortunately I neglected to measure these out. So - taste as you add. But it will be hard to go wrong with any sort of salty/peppery/herby combination on this; even seasoned salt would do nicely.

Beet and Potato Hash
Adapted from chow.com

Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 medium potatoes, diced to about 1/2" cubes
2 red beets, diced
2 golden beets, diced
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper
dash of paprika
dash of cayenne
dried oregano
4 eggs

Method:
Preheat oven to 450.
Add vegetable oil to skillet and place in preheated oven for about 5 minutes, until the oil is shimmering.
Remove skillet from oven and stir in the potatoes, beets, onion, and garlic. Add salt and pepper. Put skillet back in oven and roast for about 50 minutes, stirring halfway through cooking time (or more if your skillet is not non-stick). Add the remaining spices at the halfway mark. Taste for salt.
When the potatoes and beets are cooked through, remove the skillet from the oven and stir the hash. Create four indentations in the hash and crack an egg in each. Return skillet to oven until eggs are cooked to desired level, about 6-9 minutes.
Serves 2-4.

Verdict? Loved it. I'll be eating this again for sure. I love savory breakfasts, I love eggs, I love beets. I wish I still had the leftovers...