Can't be beet

I think it’s been pretty well established by now that as a vegetable gardener, I’m a pretty good cook. As if I needed another reminder, the other day, I went out to tend to the last of my winter vegetable beds and, finally, harvest some Swiss chard that had never quite come along as I’d hoped. The color was good, the leaves were great, but the stalks never got beyond twig-size. When I started working on it, the reason quickly became obvious: It wasn’t chard at all, but beets. Boy, were they beets, nearly softball-sized by now. I pulled one and it weight almost 1 3/4 pounds.

What can you do with something like that? Well, I wasn’t going to compost it, so I thought I’d go ahead and cook it and see what happened. It would probably turn out to be mostly wood, but I was just going to throw it out anyway, right?

So I wrapped it in foil, put it on a cookie sheet and stuck it in a 350-degree oven (I usually roast beets at 400 degrees, but those beets are usually the size of Ping-Pong balls — I figured the lower heat would allow it to cook through to the center before scorching the outside). It took a couple of hours before it tested done, a paring knife slipping in easily. It was late by then so I let it cool overnight.

The next day, I stripped away the peel with my fingers and cut away a thin slice to taste. To my shock, it was amazing! All that time in the ground had resulted in a deep, dark sweetness. It was like a regular beet to the 10th degree.

I cut it in half and sliced it into a fine dice, tossed it with arugula and crumbled goat cheese, dressed it with olive oil, minced shallots and red wine vinegar and then seasoned it with salt and a LOT of black pepper (I love beets and pepper). The flavor was terrific. And half a beet was enough to make main course salads for two of us.

Best of all, I’ve still got half a dozen in the garden. Unless some of them do turn out to be chard after all. I know I planted it somewhere.

-- Russ Parsons

Photo: Russ Parsons / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Gretchen]

I pickle my cooked beets with sushi vinegar and onyons...(any variety)...yummy and then take the leaves chop bite size and saute with Olive Oil and garlic...salt pepper....awesome..better than spinich.

[luvergrrrl]

That is an amazingly large beet! I'm jealous; the ones in my garden are just getting going. Fresh beets are incredibly delicious: I love the greens, sauteed in butter, and then sprinkled with blue cheese. The combination of the nutty brown butter flavor, the fresh greens, the sweet stems, and the savory cheese rocks my world!

[Rob Clark]

Beta Vulgaris, indeed!

[DK Crawford]

How funny! I too thought I had chard growing recently and realized it was a year-old beet root! I haven't dared it yet but shall soon! At a produce swap here someone brought a beet so huge the men were using a saw to cut it. Think the roasting it sounds muchhhhhh easier. Excited about it now! Thanks for posting the story!

[Chenais Siry]

Do canned beets have the same nutrion as afresh beets? Or are canned beets bad for you ?

[Ross]

Why does store bought beetroot taste as if it has been grown in a bog?

[nobody]

I HATE BEETS!

[Kozmo Kramer]

Red beets are the greatest things to eat!!!! In Switzerland, they grow amazing beets, you get them steamed and they come out looking like a big ball of jelly, slightly sheer, dark, rich, purple pink color and sweet!!!! Also the size of a softball!!! Just delicious to cut up and eat or mixed with a salad and some cottage cheese. Oh heaven. And........they help in lowering blood pressure. God's red jewel for the farmer!!!

[BeautyQueen]

The beauty of home grown produce is that, unlike store-bought, you can often let items mature beyond what you would normally think to be usable, and still have something wonderful result from the care you've given, and from the ripening that has been allowed to occur in the ground or on the vine or branch (rather than picking prior to ripeness as happens most often commercially).

[Fabrisse]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's a poor gardener and a good cook. *G*

I have a friend who is a fantastic gardener and I get most of my herbs and summer vegetables from her when I visit. In return, I do most of the cooking when I visit. It works.