Beets. A delicious vegetable, but they turn EVERYTHING red. Including whatever other ingredients are mixed in with them. Unless, the other ingredient is green.
I used my go to stir fry recipe for this; with chicken, broccoli, beets, and carrots. Looks pretty festive, doesn’t it?
What a week! It was busy, full of ups and downs, but, in the end, overall positive. The best news is that I was accepted into an online Doctor of Nursing Practice program!
In all the craziness, we also had our first frost on Friday night. The red bell peppers in my garden mostly didn’t ripen, but green peppers are good, too. I spent most of Saturday afternoon prepping vegetables-the last of the peppers from the garden, plus everything I got in our CSA box on Friday. We picked all the ripe tomatoes, and I’m covering the plants in the hopes of getting a few more to ripen. Amazingly, the squash plants that I thought were done have started producing again, so maybe we will get a few more decent sized ones. The weather is supposed to warm up again.
I was so excited to see that the farm left the tops on our beets this week. (Usually, they cut them off and use them for their juicing box.) I immediately decided to make a stir fry. I found a Thai Basil stir fry sauce in the Oriental foods section at the grocery store, and it gave this an amazing flavor! My husband says this is “a keeper.”
We have gotten Japanese Sweet Turnips in our box a couple of times now, and I really like their mild flavor. I found several recipes for cooking them with their greens. Unfortunately, ours came without the greens attached. So, I decided to use the beet greens instead for a simple side dish on a work night.
We got pomegranates in our box this week, a fruit I would NEVER have bought. That is the beauty of the CSA box-getting us to try produce we wouldn’t have otherwise considered. I was looking for something to do with the beet greens, and came across this recipe from yummly.com for Swiss chard, and thought I would just substitute the beet greens. Since I was substituting, I decided to use some of the pomegranate seeds instead of the raisins. I served this with pork chops, and my guests really liked it! I hope you will, too.
Wrap beets individually in foil. Roast at 400 degrees until tender, about 45-60 minutes. Allow to cool. Peel beets, then cut into ½ inch cubes. (This can be done ahead of time.)
Separate beet green leaves from the stems. Chop the leaves into 1 inch pieces. Slice the stalks into thin slices.
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook chopped leaves in water for 1 minute. Drain and reserve.
Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. And sliced stems and saute until they start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add onion and garlic, saute 3 minutes more.
Add chile, drained tomatoes, and pomegranate seeds. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes.
Add cooked beet greens, stir and heat through. Remove from heat. Add lime juice, stir.
Transfer to serving dish, sprinkle with feta and pine nuts.
I had 2 beets left from the bunch after I made the Chocolate Beet Cake, plus all the tops. I remembered that my sister in law had suggested using broccoli tops in fried rice, so I decided to try it with beet greens. I have been trying to clean out my refrigerator in preparation for a trip out of town, and also had some carrots and green onions sitting around. I found some leftover diced ham in the freezer. I make brown rice in bulk and freeze it in 1 cup portions, so I pulled out some of those, too. This ended up to be a really quick dish to prepare. (I’ve given you the long version instructions, in case you don’t have pre-cooked rice.)
Because I used beets, EVERYTHING turned an interesting shade of pink. However, it tasted really good!
Cook brown rice in water, according to package directions. It usually takes 40-50 minutes. This can be done ahead; just reheat the rice a bit prior to making fried rice.
While rice cooks, cook beets and carrots. I did this in the microwave, but you could also do it on the stove top. (The beets took about 5 minutes, the carrots 3 minutes. I cooked them both in a little water.) Peel and chop beets.
Heat canola oil in wok or deep skillet. Stir fry beets, carrots, green onions, beet tops, and ham for about 5 minutes, until beet tops are wilting.
Add beaten eggs to pan and scramble the eggs with the vegetables.
Add rice and stir to combine.
Add soy sauce and stir.
Add sesame oil just prior to serving.
Notes
Note that the prep is mostly done while the rice is cooking, it probably takes 1 hour total to make this dish.