Beets.
Red beets. Yellow beets.
Beets. Filling our fridge. Piling up. Releasing the pungent scent of slowly rotting vegetables, of dirt and roots and time, sticking around out of spite. Three weeks of beets. Three weeks of CSA-produced beets. In three specific stages of vegetative state. Maroon, leafy, impossible beets.
What the hell do you do with beets?
This has been the crux of our CSA. These beets. From the first week they showed up, they posed a problem. They stain your fingers, taste like pure earth and do little but stay solid and, well, beety. We’ve cut them up for a salad, but other than that they’ve stumped us. They’re one of those foods, like turnips or parsnips, that offer little but themselves. Creativity is not in the beet’s game, or so it seems.
At least, that’s how it seems to us.
Our goal this week is to rid our fridge of beets. We have had no problem with everything else – lettuce is easy to dispose of, radishes serve as the perfect picnic snack and onions are elementary. Even kohlrabi, of which we receive two each week, has been put to good use sliced on salads.
But beets. I mean, come on. This is hard!
Thankfully, research has provided us with two beet recipes, both of which could be quite good: Roasted Beet Salad with Feta Dressing and Roasted Beet, Pistachio and Pear Salad.
The problem is that we will use five beets total. Five. We have at least twelve on the bottom shelf, and that’s without taking stock of our most recent harvest.
We weren’t able to make the CSA pickup this week due to a Saturday post-Independence Day lake-cabin trip, but my mother made the trip for us. And though we received only half of our share (a mix-up on Warner’s part that has been remedied) we found a surprise – a sweet yellow pepper; small, unassuming and pepperocini-esque. In addition, we received our usual:
Onions
Cabbage
Kohlrabi
Sweet Yellow Pepper
And yes. Beets.
Those pesky beets. Those awful beets. They could taste like candy, but for now they simply sit, waiting for us to take action, for us to make the first move.
But we’re ready for battle, prepared to emerge victorious, our fingers stained red, mixed with the lifeblood of the beet. We’re ready to vanquish our foe.
And then we’re ready to not get any more beets, thanks.
Now is a perfect time to dig up a recipe for Borscht! Delicious Russian/Ukrainian beet soup!
Long time reader, first time commenter… It takes beetroot to inspire me, clearly.
My grandmother loved beetroot… she grated it, tossed it with orange juice and other salad vegetables. The best way, I think, is to boil them whole, takes quite a while, they’re ready when you can skewer them easily. The skin just slips off, and you end up with a kitchen looking like a crime scene, but it’s fun. Chill and slice for use in salads and hamburgers… or bake them whole, skin on, washed and wrapped in foil with crushed garlic, thyme and and serve with balsamic vinegar dressing and a roast…
My grandmother also used to make a beetroot spread with red wine, but I don’t remember the recipe… and beetroot soup which I never liked, but it’s a possibility!