Don’t Miss a Beet

Waste not, want not.

I’m fortunate to live with a chef (yes, a certified Red Seal chef, who also happens to be my sister (#blessed)) who teaches me how to do just that.

Last week, when we needed beets and we could only find ones with the greens still attached (see below), she was nonplussed. Me, on the other hand? I just had to navigate a knife around those stems (and, as anyone who has ever cut beets knows, it already looks like a murder scene, so who really knows what was blood and what was beet juice…).

Apparently beets come out of the ground looking like this – who knew? (Image source: http://bcfresh.ca/beets-under-pressure/)

As I was heading to the compost with said decapitated beet greens, Chef Gray convinced me to keep them to sauté later in olive oil and garlic.

No regrets.

Chef Gray masterminded the first beet meal (using the bulb part of the beets) – a mixed green salad topped with roasted beets, candied salmon, candied pecans (handmade), peach slices, pomegranate seeds, pumpkin seeds, goat feta, and balsamic vinaigrette. It was to die for.

There are no “made” pictures of my beet greens meal because it’s all in my tummy. After sautéing the washed beet greens in olive oil and garlic, I added cooked ground turkey and rice in tomato sauce to make a sort of “beet roll” (like a cabbage roll).

Both meals were delicious, but I’m pretty sure Chef Gray had her finger on the pulse of this beet.