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What is That and How Do I Eat It?

~ strangeandyummy farmer's market finds

Tag Archives: creamy

With Every Beet of My Heart

13 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by strangeandyummy in Fall, Miscellany, Red, Roots and Tubers, Spring, Winter

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

beet, bull's blood, creamy, crunchy, earthy, heart, nutty, raw, red beet, root, round, Valentine's Day

Confession time: I’m a convert.

Red BeetIf you can believe it (I can’t), I once said (on this very blog!) and I quote: “Some raw food types grate them into obscurity or juice them in order to eat them, but I don’t recommend it. ”

Ah, the ignorance of youth! Or at least the fears of a beet newbie. You know what’s awesome? You know what is possibly the greatest salad in the history of salads?

Raw Beet Salad.

Raw.

DSCF8560

Bloody.

grated beetsRed.

Cut beetrootBeets.beetroot closeupI know! I astound even myself. Or, rather, Mark Bittman does.

Red beets are indeed bloody and gory (and, not to be too déclassé, but seriously – put a note in the bathroom that you ate beets yesterday. Seriously. Especially if you have kids. You’ll think someone’s hemorrhaging. Everyone thinks someone’s hemorrhaging the first time you eat a lot of beets. If you’re pregnant? Forget about it. You’ll be on the way to the emergency room before you remember that you’re only chock-full of vitamins, or, ahem, no longer quite so chock full of vitamins). But the redder they are, the sweeter they are, and though I used to prefer Golden Beets and I still think Candy Cane Beets are just the cutest, if you’re going raw, you’ve got to go red, baby.

DSCF8566This isn’t just because of the taste, though it’s mostly that. The other reason you should go for the red beets (or beetroot if you’re British) is that the other kinds change color really darn quickly. We’ve tried the below salad with golden beets, and they turn greenish-mud and look kind of like a bowl of vomit. The white parts of the chioggia beets turn brown, and when grated you lose all their cuteness (though they might work okay if mandolined and eaten quickly – I can’t say, I haven’t tried it).

But the red beets – grate them or slice them thin enough, and you have sweet, crunchy, earthy, beets coupled with a fresh and bright dressing, offset by the smooth, tangy creaminess of little dabs of goat cheese and rounded out by hearty, silky walnuts. It’s perfection.

Valentine’s Day, however, deserves a little something extra. {Drumroll, please}

Heart Beet SaladRed is great; hearts are better.

Heart Beet Salad
adapted from Mark Bittman’s Raw Beet Salad

I’ve adapted this recipe for 2 adults and 2 young children, because that’s what I serve – If it makes too much for a romantic dinner for two, save the hearts you mangled and the parts you trimmed off the beetroot, grate or slice thin, mix with the dressing, and store in the fridge. It will keep for a couple of days – but mix with the dressing first. Unlike leaf salads in which the dressing makes it soggy, the vinegar here helps keep the beets from losing their color – but only for a day or two. Then they’ll get soggy, too.

Dressing:
1-2 large shallots, thinly sliced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1-2 teaspoon Dijon mustard, or to taste
1/2-1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tablespoons champagne vinegar (the original recipe uses sherry vinegar; we prefer champagne; red wine vinegar is too strong)
1-2 sprig fresh tarragon, minced
1/8-1/4 cup chopped parsley leaves (a nicely-sized ripped off bunch)
*the measurements vary depending on how much dressing you like. Start on the low end of all if you’re not sure or don’t like everything drowned. Make the higher amount if you don’t mind leftover dressing, and then dress to taste.

2-3 medium beets – if you’re making hearts, the more spherical, the better
1-2 inch log of goat cheese, crumbled
1/4 c walnuts, crumbled

In a small bowl, whisk together salt, pepper, mustard, oil, and vinegar. Taste to adjust seasonings (keep in mind you’ll be adding herbs – taste for ratios of oil to vinegar, and saltiness, not so much for exact flavor). Stir in shallots. Avoid mixing herbs into dressing to save a step – the whisking and tossing bruises the leaves and makes them lose a little of their floral sweetness.

To make beet hearts:

Peel beets. Cut off the top and bottom where the greens sprout and where it gets spindly – you want a nice-looking circle with two flat sides.

beet circlePlacing one flat side down, cut in half (lengthwise if it’s not a perfect circle). Working with one half-circle, cut the bottom round edge off at a diagonal – this will be the bottom edge of half a heart. beet heart

Trim the top edge to remove the corner and round it out.

Beet Heart Half Repeat with the other half-circle.

Beet Heart CompleteTurn round side facing up and slice into very thin slices. Place two halves next to each other to form hearts on the plate.

My heart on a plate

Crumble goat cheese and walnuts on top, drizzle with dressing, and sprinkle with minced herbs.

Grated Beet SaladIf you want to just make the grated salad version:

Peel the shallot and the beets and put them through the shredder blade of the food processor, or pulse to grate. Don’t overprocess.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dressing, leaving out the herbs. Toss the dressing with the shredded beets, then toss briefly with herbs. If you’re making it for a crowd, you can sprinkle the goat cheese and walnuts on top now, and serve, but if you’re making individual plates, dish up the beets first, then crumble goat cheese and walnuts on top so that the beets don’t turn the cheese pink. (Vegans: the original has no goat cheese and is also awesome.)

Info on peeling, seasonality, etc. is the same as Golden Beets.

———————————————————————————————-

A note: It takes a lot of time and effort to create these posts. I share the information I’ve found because I want to be helpful, but I’m also a professional writer, and other people pay me for my work. Please, please, STOP STEALING MY POSTS. I don’t disable copying because the majority of lovely, honest people who come around might want to copy and paste the recipes to their computers – but I also really, really don’t like thievery. If you find my information useful, please give credit where it’s due, and post a link to my page! The vegetables, the universe, karma, and your mother will thank you. And I won’t have to get all high-security up in here or shut the whole thing down.

 

 

 

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The Illustrious Avocado

01 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by strangeandyummy in Brown, Fall, Fruit, Green, Spring, Summer, Vegetables, Winter

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

avocado, bumpy, creamy, pit, raw, skin, soft

Alright, so an avocado isn’t the most exotic food to start a page called “Strange and Yummy,” but when you grew up with your vegetable choice of frozen peas, frozen corn, or the more mysterious frozen mixed vegetables – consisting of frozen peas, frozen corn, frozen carrots, and the dreaded lima bean – an avocado was a revelation.  Other than pre-sliced on my California Turkey sandwich at Au Bon Pain, I don’t think I saw an avocado in the flesh until I actually moved to California at the age of 20. 

If you’re an avocado newbie like I was, you might be wary of their alien bumpy skin, afraid of their fatty reputation, or worried about what occasionally appears to be green goo oozing out of the sides of the sandwich.  You shouldn’t be.  An avocado is nature’s mayonnaise.  Well, okay, if you hate mayonnaise, you might not like an avocado.  A ripe avocado is silky and almost eggy in its richness.  If you splash it with fruit vinegar you’ll notice that an avocado is technically a fruit, not a veg, but an avocado really shines with fresh garlic, ripe tomatoes, shellfish like crab and shrimp – especially with a sharp acid to counter the smooth, slightly sweet avocado, like a splash of lemon, lime or balsamic vinegar.  An avocado is equally at home mashed into a guacamole and served with chips or served in a crystal martini glass filled with fresh ceviche, in California rolls, in salads, and divine in a BLT. 

Okay, it’s definitely weird that a fruit can be fatty.  That just seems…wrong, doesn’t it?  I’d think it was unfair somehow, but the nice part at least is that at least avocados are full of the good kinds of fat – you know, the kind that gives you boobs instead of love handles.  Wait, that’s not what that means?  Oh.  Anyway, it’s full of yummy yummy good fat and lots of vitamin E, which doesn’t show up in tons of places and is absorbed best with food instead of supplements and is super good for you but now I forget why because all the knowledge on nutrition I used to have memorized has been replaced with versions of the Alphabet Song.  The perils of having a toddler.

So what to do with it?  First, you’ve got to know what to look for.  A ripe avocado should have a little give when you squeze it; if it’s soft or actually squishy, it’s overripe.  It might still be good in something mashed into oblivion, but it will be too squishy to holds its shape in anything else.  Don’t squeeze too hard or too obviously though – ripe avocados actually bruise pretty easily, and sellers don’t like people mushing up their produce. 

Avocados start out with bright green skin (some varieties are quite smooth, most regularly available kinds are bumpy) and turn brown as they ripen.  Again, too brown and it’s too ripe.  A little hint of green is a good thing to look for unless you plan on using it as soon as you get home.

 

Cut the avocado in half lengthwise, but watch out for the big pit, and watch out for your hand.  That’s how I got this scar:

Okay, you can’t really see it, but I know it’s there and it hurt like a sonofabitch when I stabbed myself with the tip of the steak knife.  I never use the right knife for the job, by the way. 

The inside will be greener towards the skin, paler towards the pit, and will usually get a little yellowish when it’s really ripe.  If it’s hard – not apple hard, even just green-tipped banana hard – it’ll be bitter and gross.  You want it soft and creamy – if there’s any separation of layers or brown spots, cut them out and use the rest.  See these?

That’s separation.  This guy’s getting close to guacamole time.

Something I just discovered from a grower this fall?  You can keep avocados in the fridge to stop them from ripening.  I know, I know, you can do that with almost everything, but I’d always heard avocados were counter fruit.  Not so!

You can use the sharp tip of a knife to jab the pit and pluck it out – envisioning some enemy’s eyeball if it makes you feel a little more badass when making a salad – but I’ve got issues with knives slipping away from me (see nonexistent scar above), so I like to sort of wrestle it out with a fingernail even if it mangles the pretty indent a bit. 

Use a big spoon to get between the thick skin and the avocado flesh and take out the whole half at once, then slice, dice, julienne or mash to your heart’s content.

So now to the yummy part…Yay!  I love avocados.  I could eat them almost every day.  I personally don’t like them even the least bit warm – maybe someone out there has a recipe that uses them cooked, but I haven’t seen one – so I don’t even like to put them on top of something like an omelette until it’s already on the table.  My favorite way to eat them is the simplest: cut one avocado and one tomato that’s roughly the same size into roughly the same size chunks.  Add a little raw red onion if you’re feeling snazzy.  Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and maybe the tiniest bit of olive oil if you want more of a dressing, sprinkle with salt and garlic powder and enjoy!

Except once you’ve had farmer’s market tomatoes fresh from the sun in summer, grocery store tomatoes in the dead of winter are pale pink lumps of tastelessness, so instead I’ll be eating today’s purchase in my secret non-dairy tuna salad recipe:

Mash half of one ripe avocado.  Drain one can water-packed tuna and mix together.  Add a splash of lemon juice and some garlic powder if you’re more adult-like, or a teaspoon of pickle relish if you’re a traditionalist.  Voila!  Tuna salad without the mayo.   I had some lovely pics of it piled elegantly on crackers, but when all is said and done, well, tuna salad, even with avocado, looks a little like pinkish mush.  And I accidentally deleted them from the camera while they were downloading.  But trust me, it tastes delicious.

This is how I get my son to eat avocado, by the way – he used to love it raw when he was just starting solids, but now he wants nothing to do with it, so I have to hide it in tuna salads so he gets that precious vitamin E.  What’s that for again?

Peel? Definitely – skin is inedible.
Edible seed? Nope.  Pit it.
Edible when raw?  Definitely.  At its best.
Worth the price of organic?  Not really.  Their thick skin protects them from absorbing most pesticides.
In season: Haas avocados (the most common kind available) from January through fall in California.  Since they’re a more tropical fruit, they’re usually in season somewhere in the world all the time.
Best with: shellfish, garlic, cilantro, tomatoes, red onions
How to Store: A heated debate, especially when cut into, which we’ll get into another time.  Whole avocados can be stored in the fridge to make them last longer or on the counter to ripen.  Once ripe, store in the fridge for two days to a week.  If you overbought, you can puree the ripe flesh with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice and freeze for up to five months.

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