beets | beets me

What do you do with a ton of beets in a pinch?!??! Well you HAVE to make a version of this salad.

I got on a Mark Bittman kick last week, reading his favorite recipes over and over again, sort of methodically hoping that the more I read, the more of his skills I’d gain. I used his recipe for raw beet salad as the inspiration for this last-minute salad. It was so last-minute that I ate it all straight from the bowl. I have to be honest here and say I’m not sure it’d be worth making if I didn’t have the food processor with a grater attachment. Because hello, beets are SOOO messy. But if you happen to be wearing a large rubber raincoat, Red Lobster bib, or elbow-high gloves, it might be less messy for you.

Here’s my rendition taking from some advice from Mark. So, beets apparently are so sweet that they require a ton of acid. Well, I went a little overboard but it’s ok!!! There’s always room to tweak that. (tweaking, t-w-e-a-k-i-n-g tweaking…Tom Hanks, You’ve Got Mail).

1. Grate 1 beet and 1 carrot

2. Mince 1 in chunk of ginger (peeled) and 1 shallot

3. Whisk together minced ginger, juice of a lime, some shakes of sherry vinegar, a few squeezes of honey, dijon, some SESAME OIL and olive oil- KEY INGREDIENT HERE

3. Pour dressing over beets and carrots

4. Chop up some cilantro and throw in the mix to your liking

5. Chop up some salty peanuts, almonds, or whatever nuts you have on hand. I’d even add chopped ramen if I had any 🙂

Ok so at this point, mine was a little too acidic, so the way I mellowed it out was by adding some guacamole. But really, chop up an avocado if you have one – I think that’s the key addition.

A few nights before, I went to this restaurant with friends where they have these spicy marcona almonds with manchego cheese and chocolate. Holy cow, amazing appetizer. So you realllyyy need to go to that restaurant and use the leftover almonds in the salad, that was key here.

beetsonbeetsonbeeeets!!!

Poor performance on my attendance to this blog. Apologies. It’s been a busy June and although I’ve cooked quite a bit, I haven’t had much time to post and take pics. Also, my camera broke so I’m borrowing my sister’s cam and my mom’s iPad.

Here’s a little recap of some of the cooking extravaganza’s of late:

– We went to St. Augustine, FL and baked molten lava cakes for the first time. My mom has discovered a new age cooking technique. I call it yoga-mixing, mostly because she was beating eggs and butter and sugar together whilst holding the yoga-tree position steadily for a solid 4 minutes. Clearly we are a bit of ying and yang in the kitchen since I have zero flexibility but manage to coordinate baking lava cakes until juuuuust done.

– I tried to make cauliflower pizza crust with Arianna which was cheesy but a bit off. She’s used to my crazy attempts and puts up with my antics, so it was still some good sisterly bonding time!

– We made some homemade peach ice cream for Father’s Day which was delicious except for the fresh peaches part. My suggestion is that you stick to the pureed peaches for the flavor and if you really want chunks, add them AFTER you’ve fully prepared the ice cream according to the maker’s instructions. Otherwise they become essentially ice chunks.

– I got the Party like a Culinista cookbook!!!! Woop woop. I keep taking it in the car with me for “a little light reading.” Dont ask…but now I’m sooo excited to make some of the recipes!

Ok, back to the meat of the post. HA. My best friend’s mom is my recipe guy, okay well recipe girl. I wish I lived in a big city where I could be like, “Yea these beets are going to be great because you know I’ve got a great beet guy.” What I’m trying to say is my best friend Cessie’s mom is an amazing chef and everytime I want to get the deets on a recipe, she can tell me if it’s legit or not. She raves about Deb’s buttermilk roast chicken so since I had some leftover buttermilk, we thought we’d try it.

In the summertime, we try to use the grill as much as possible, so we improvised a bit. My dad’s a little obsessed with our pizza stone, so we tried it as a “pan” on the grill. Success! On one half of the grill, we grilled some beets wrapped in foil that we bought at a local farmer’s market. Then we let the pizza stone heat up before adding the chicken directly on top. If only it hadn’t been raining….

To prepare this chicken, basically follow the marinade on Deb’s recipe (we halved it) and let your chicken juice up for a few hours or overnight. We had some boneless skinless breasts, so the cooking time was pretty short for us, but she says you can use any cuts of chicken. When I make this again, I will definitely let it marinate overnight to increase tenderness. After reading some of the comments on her post, I found out that the buttermilk is the magic ingredient to the most tender chicken. I agree! And it’s a very easy recipe good for beginners!

Ingredients for marinade (minus the buttermilk)

Smashing the garlic helps let out some of the flavor

I call this one “the art of arranging food” because my Dad was showing me how I needed to better arrange the beets around the chicken. It was totally worth me stepping away because he really is good at food styling!! **Thanks Dad**

Voila!

beets me

Tag Archives: beets

Raw beet and carrot ginger shallot salad

Buttermilk Brined Chicken with BEETS