Photo from Dani Spies. I first published this post at 8:15 pm on 7/7/14 and updated it at 3:00 pm on 7/8/14 to include the actual farm share and links to additional recipes.
The July 8 farm share was slated to include lettuce mix, beets, cilantro, tomatoes, red bunch onions and cucumbers. The actual share also included summer squash and the beets included the greens, as I had hoped.
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Beets and chard are part of the same species (and, as is spinach in the Amaranth family), so the greens are very similar in taste. Make sure you remove the greens right away before storing so that they won't drain moisture from the roots. You can used the greens raw in a salad or steam or saute them. Because the stalks take a little bit longer to cook, I cook them first, before adding the greens. Besides tasting good, beet greens are packed with vitamins A and C and have a good amount of iron and calcium too.This recipe uses both the roots and the greens.
Serves 4-6
1. Cook one cup of quinoa.
2. Separate the beet roots from the greens. Scrub the roots. I roast the whole beet roots unpeeled for 20 minutes in a countertop convection oven, as it doesn't heat up the house so much in summer and saves electricity, too. But if you don't have one, you can roast the beets, wrapped in foil, in a regular oven preheated to 400 degrees F for 50 minutes or until tender (small beets cook faster.)
3. Chop the beet stems, keeping separate and tear the greens into large pieces.
3. Mince three whole cloves of garlic (or you can substitute 2 TB of garlic scape pesto, if you have some left.
4. Finely chop the red bunch onions and greens. Reserve 2 TB of onions for the beet roots.
5. Lightly coat cast iron skillet with extra virgin olive oil and heat to medium. Saute beet stems until tender and add remainder of onions saute until translucent. Stir in beat greens until just wilted. Set aside to cool.
6. Peel the roasted beets and cut them into small bite site pieces and let cool.
7. Chop 1/2 cup of cilantro.
8. Chop 1 cucumber.
9. In a large bowl combine beets, beet greens, chopped cucumbers, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 TB balsamic vinegar, garlic, and pepper to taste. Toss with cooked quinoa. Top with 1/4 c. walnuts, 1/4 # of crumbled feta and top with cilantro before serving.
Additional beet recipes:
Moroccan Stew: Beets, Buttercup Squash and Radishes
I also like to make a cold beet borscht by boiling grated beets until soft with lemon juice and a bit of sugar, chilling and topping with Greek yogurt or tofu sour cream and cold diced boiled potatoes.
