To honor this celebrated root vegetable, I made beet cupcakes and a roasted beet salad.
Now, I know what you're thinking...beet...cupcakes?? And yes, I had these same thoughts, but really, it's very similar to carrot cake or chocolate zucchini bread...but reddish-purple-ish. As much as I don't want to admit this, truth be told, I don't cook a lot with beets. But! I do love them! (As indicated by my tag line.) I enjoy their texture, colorfulness and sweetness. But let's be honest. They are quite messy...and by messy, I mean red. Very red.
My hand after peeling 8 beets...5 red, 3 golden. Good thing I'm washable.
But I'll do just about anything for cupcakes.
Beet cupcake with mascarpone-whipped cream frosting sprinkled with turbinado sugar (or raw sugar, as my mom insists on calling it) and topped with a brulee-ed beet slice.
I was initially concerned because these cupcakes have no butter. Yikes! Is there such a cupcake? And would such a cupcake be yummy? But surprisingly, it was quite yummy and not dry and somewhat spicy from the cinnamon. And speaking of cinnamon, I ran out. Sigh. But I did have cinnamon sticks...so...
Freshly ground cinnamon, courtesy of my microplane and right bicep.
On to the roasted beet salad. Personally, roasting is my fav cooking preparation for beets. It really adds depth to their normal sweetness. But, roasting beets is quite a long process...a couple hours on low heat at least. So I opted to first boil and then toss in a balsamic vinaigrette and roast until carmelized.
Roasted red and golden beet salad with orange segments and goat cheese with balsamic vinaigrette. So yummy!
While perusing beet recipes, I came across this pasta dish:
Penne with Italian-style chicken sausage and peas with San Marzano tomatoes and cream
And I also promised Steve (Finance) a batch of flaky scones.
I also promised that they would be pineapple. Sadly, that recipe was left at work, so he'll have to settle for blueberry-orange. Maybe he won't notice...
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O.M.G. K.B.B.
In non-beet news, today was a great day in sports! And by great, I mean totally and completely wonderful. First, the Celtics lose at home to the Spurs...and this game got a little scrappy, too! Like icing on the cake. But more importantly, the Lakers won...at Cleveland!!! 6-0 roadtrip! But alas, I was watching Ansari do our stats homework instead of the game. School is such a problem. But from what I read (and I'm trying to read as little as possible), Lamar had quite the performance, and poor Kobe has come down with the flu. But he still played. No wheelchair necessary. I wonder what Paul Pierce thinks about that? Hmm...
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