Purple dinner

Beets, beets, and more beets. With our vegetable CSA, we have had many beets this winter. I think I've had more beets this winter that the last 5 combined!

I had one batch of beets in the refrigerator that was starting to go soft, so I boiled them to try to extend the cooking life. One night decided that I needed to use them all up. The same night I also decided to stop being intimidated by my purple barley from our grain CSA. The result: a very purple dinner.

First I made purple barley into the same salad that I made with wheat berries earlier this month. It was good. I like the taste of the barley! My 4-year old said this was his favorite part of the dinner. I've also found that I really like the purple barley with Geek Yogurt for breakfast.

I also made a beet soup adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and a beet and potato salad adapted from Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites.

The beet soup tasted ok. It did have a gorgeous red/purple color. I made a lot of modifications to the original recipe, but overall it just lacked some substance. I had one kohlrabi from the CSA--not part of the recipe, but I had roasted it and found that none of us wanted to eat it plain--so it went into the soup pot. This made a huge batch of soup; more than the 4-6 serving that the recipes suggests so we ate it for several days and froze a batch too.

Beet Soup

6 cups quick stock

4 beets boiled, peeled, and cut up (from Open Oak CSA)

1 onion chopped

2 cloves garlic (from Open Oak CSA)

olive oil

1 kohlrabi cubed and baked (from Open Oak CSA)

salt and pepper

Make stock with 6 cups of water, potato peelings (from potato salad recipe), parsley, onion peelings, dill, beet peelings, carrot peelings and cook for 20 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Cook onions in oil until soft. Then add in beets and kohlrabi and saute a few more minutes. Add vegetables to the stock. Puree with hand mixer (this is not in the original recipe, but my vegetables were so unevenly chopped that they looked funny in the soup pot together). Add salt and pepper to taste.

The salad was really purple--well more like the color of pink Pepto-Bismal. Th picture doesn't do it justice, because the beets just continued to leak color the longer it was in the refrigerator. The salad was overly acidic with Nancy's yogurt and apple cider vinegar, so we started to add mayonnaise to each serving and that helped soften the flavor. I think it would be better with fresh dill and a red onion (both in the original recipe, but I didn't have either at home). The color sure would make for an interesting potluck conversation piece.

Beet Potato Salad

5 beets, boiled, and cut into bite sized pieces (from Open Oak CSA)

3 potatoes, peeled, cut into bite sized pieces, and boiled

1/2 c minced onions

1 c Nancy's plain yogurt

2T dried dill

2 t cider vinegar

2 pickles, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Mayonnaise to taste

Boil the cut potatoes in water for 20 minutes until soft. Drain. Place beets and potatoes in a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together. Chill for at least 30 minutes.