Beet It

I've been craving beets for a few weeks, but the thought of firing up the oven in the midst of a heat wave made me a little ill. So, after seeing this recipe for raw beet salad in the Times, I decided, hey, it's time to try pick up some greenmarket goodness and go to town!

I was basically shut in on Saturday avoiding the insane temperatures in Midtown (and there was a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America...yes, I'm a geek), so I decided to finally attack the beautiful bunch of beets I'd purchased the Sunday before. After a little web surfing I learned that you should cut the greens off as soon as you buy them (they're edible, in case you didn't know). Mine were pretty wilted, so salad was out, but I decided to make a quick pasta dish. I sautéed about 6 cloves of garlic and a little chili in some olive oil, threw in the stems, which I cooked until tender, then added the chopped greens and some sliced olives. I tossed that with a little more olive oil, cooked fusilli pasta, some crumbled feta, and a little salt and black pepper. Happy dinner!

As for the beautiful beet roots (I had 6 moderately-sized ones), I peeled each and shredded them in my little food processor. I ended up with so much ruby wonderfulness that I decided to dress the shreds super-simply so I could play with various other ingredients over the week. I tossed everything with the juice of 1 lemon, 1 orange, and about 3 tablespoons of olive oil, then threw the container in the fridge.

For salad number one I mixed in some green onion, raw corn kernels, crumbled goat cheese, salt, and pepper. It wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be, therefore: fantastic. Even though I have quite a lot of beet left in the fridge, I think I'll be sad to see it go...