Beet Experiments

This week I had the following at hand from the CSA: beets, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and cabbage. So, there was really only one option to bring them all together--make borscht. I am renaming my version as Triple Purple Soup, because my potatoes and carrots were purple to start with. It's too bad that the cabbage was green. It turned out well! I pre-roasted the beets, added fresh thyme sprigs from the garden, and flavored with beef stock, Worchestershire sauce, and red wine vinegar. It paired nicely with crusty whole-grain bread and sharp white cheddar cheese. I just tried to ignore that it was so....unnaturally purple.

CSA delivery from this week:

Watermelon: The greedy part of me was thrilled that the watermelon in my box looked bigger than most of the other ones. But then the lazy part of me was disappointed that I had to carry it out to my car, along with pounds and pounds of other stuff. Now I'm back to being thrilled. I never buy watermelons. I haven't cut into it yet. This one is supposed to have orange flesh.

Potatoes: This kind has purple skin and purple insides. They stay purple after cooking!

Green beans: I had previously found these kind of dull, but that was before I tried roasting them with garlic, onion, and olive oil.

Beets: Lots. Half of them went into the borscht, and the other half are going to be Jewel-Roasted Vegetables. I bought some brussels sprouts at the farmers market for the recipe--I just can't resist the tiny early fall ones.

Summer squash: I am going to make another ratatouille tart.

Tomatoes: One red and one yellow. Both to go in the above tart.

Onions: gone already!

Broccoli: It turns out that broccoli pesto is the perfect topping for potatoes.

Lettuce: my favorite dark-green oak leafy kind.

Chinese cabbage: gone already!