Beating My Fear of Beets

As parents we tell our kids, "Try it, you may find that you like it." But secretly I’ve held onto some of my “yucks” without trying again.

Growing up – I thought beets just came in rings from a can. No wonder I didn’t like them and in restaurants they seem to bleed all over my iceberg…not my favorite lettuce, I might add. It was from my childhood “yucks” that it took me a long time to get over the realization that those beets totally undermined the taste and nutritional value of freshly grown organic beets. Turns out they’re bloodiness is symbolic of the fact that they’re extremely good for fighting heart and blood diseases. So I went around asking my beet loving friends how they handle.

Our school principal and esteemed foodie blogger told me that the easy way to roast beets is to wash them and wrap them in aluminum foil with just a few drops of water in a hot oven for about 45 minutes. Then the skin will sluff off and sprinkle with favorite vinegar and some salt. He said you can use it over the next few days.

My friend Sara doesn’t even wash them. She steams them on the stove for about 45 minutes. I tried it and lo and behold the skin DOES sluff right off. I  then cut it up with some heirloom tomatoes, sprinkled a little feta and balsamic and had an amazing salad. I found that the tang really offset the earthy flavor of the beet. Another friend of mine suggested that next time I add mandarin oranges or tangerine slices. I went online and it looks like someone came up with a great recipe with arugula, for crying out loud, YUM!

That sounded so good that I shaved a raw beet and threw it into the blender with all fruit I could find in the fridge. In went oranges, pears, strawberries, kiwi and frozen banana and the kids were sucking it down without any awareness of the root vegetable they turned their noses up at a few days earlier. Turns out the New York Times had a recipe for that all along. Hmmm, next time I might add granola.

When I think of my beet "yucks" I think of my brown bread upbringing and of the neighbors on the fifth floor of the New York apartment building where I grew up,  Seems like they always had borscht on the stove. The variety can range from one of eastern Europe to the other from beef shank to cabbage to dollops of sour cream. Hot borscht/ cold borscht/ day old borscht/ new borscht -- I managed to always say I had to be home for dinner when that family invited me to stay.   

But maybe I’ll find a pro to make it for me so I can have GOOD borscht and see if I can learn to distinguish it from the eastern European variations that scared me off as a kid. Similarly if you peruse online there are quite a few appetizing beet soup recipes but I like asking friends for their tried and true recipes best.    Got any to share?