If You Can’t Beet ‘Em …

Posted by Cynical Sarah on March 22, 2010

My husband loves beets – not likes, loves. He will stock up on cans of them when we come across them at the grocery store, and when the shelves seem to be devoid of canned beets, he’ll resort to the pickled kind in a jar.

Those are most convenient for him because he doesn’t have to do anything to cook them. I don’t like beets, so I don’t generally go out of my way to cook fresh beets for meals. However, I have made the effort to try to find ways I’ll like them because he does love them so much.

Plain boiled doesn’t work for me. Baked in orange juice doesn’t work for me. Beet dip made with horseradish also doesn’t cover up the dirt flavor enough for me either.

I had pretty much given up on ever liking beets in any form until I got my first issue of Cooking Light magazine last week. I’ve been anticipating this mag since my brother got me a subscription for Christmas. He got the subscription in December, I got a card in January saying I had been given a gift subscription, and it took until March 15 to actually get a copy. Slow processing or what?

Anyway, my goal is to try at least one recipe from the magazine each month. This first issue included Kale and Beet Risotto, and I figured that one last shot at a beet recipe wouldn’t hurt me. Besides, I’ve never made a risotto.

Here’s the recipe if anyone cares to give it a try: Grilled Flatiron Steak with Kale and Beet Risotto.

I made a couple of modifications. I used spinach instead of kale, mainly because it was easier to find spinach but also because I was already taking a big step trying beets again and using an unfamiliar extra veggie might have been too much for me. Plus I had to settle for fennel seed instead of tarragon (which some random site said was an appropriate substitute). I also forgot to get red wine vinegar, so I used the rice vinegar I had on hand.

All changes aside, the dish was a success. I think it was the fennel seed, but for once I ate something with beets in it that didn’t have a dirt undertone to it. Plus it still had whatever special beet magic that my husband loves.

One lesson learned in this is that no matter what the recipe says for prep and cooking time, you can pretty much double it if you haven’t ever made that dish before. My estimated 6:30 p.m. dinner time got pushed back to 7 p.m. the night I made this. It was worth the extra effort to do it right though. If I hadn’t made sure it was done right, I wouldn’t have known if it was the beets or improper preparation if I didn’t like it in the end.

But I did like it. So now I have a way to cook beets that I’ll eat and got a “When are we having beet risotto again?” from the hubby.

Perhaps the second lesson learned from this was that it doesn’t hurt to give foods you don’t like a second, third or even fourth try. You never know when you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Next on my culinary adventure list is a barley risotto made with cubed squash and shiitake mushrooms. I’m not a mushroom fan, but perhaps they’ll taste ok, or at least not be noticeable in this dish.

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Tags: beets, cooking, cooking light, food, recipes

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