Beets beets beets! (Equals yummy soup!) June 11, 2010

Ever since I was a kid, I have had a serious, serious love for beets in any form. (I think it’s that French Canadian thing again.) And when I was 13, I worked at the Fritz Family Restaurant at the top end of the Sunshine Coast, just outside of Egmont.  It was an awesome little fast food joint, owned by one of the nicest families. The matriarch had a grand-daughter about my age, and she treated me in a gruff, grandmotherly way that I absolutely adored. The best thing on the menu (besides everything) was the borscht. I think I probably ate that soup almost every single day for the entire summer I worked there, always with a dollop of sour cream on top, and I never ever got sick of it. Now that I’m an adult, I will still order it any time I see it on the menu (which, surprisingly, isn’t that often), and I did make it from scratch in my early 20s. (Which, as we all know, isn’t that long ago…) Only, that recipe called for beef, which was and is a bit weird to me, being that it’s supposed to be a soup about beets. Typo? Probably not. Anyway, it was good, as my roommates from that era will attest, but it still bothered me about the meat. So for a while, I satisfied my beet cravings with, well, beets. Boiled with sugar, roasted with other root veggies and salt and pepper, shredded over salad. And of course, pickled. Ahhh….pickled beets, that I could eat an entire jar of you and not get an upset stomach. Anyway. So I was at the veggie stand the other day, and came across some beets, and impulsively bought a few, with no idea what I was going to do with them. And then I remembered. The Soup. Uh huh. It was going to have to be. Except I didn’t want meat in it; I wanted to showcase this fantastic vegetable and make it centre stage. So I consulted a number of random recipe sites, and every single one of them called for some form of animal. Grr. Well, the following is what happens when I get mad in the kitchen.

Beet Borscht

2-3 tablespoons butter
5-6 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, halved then chopped
1/8 head red cabbage, sliced into ribbons
1/8 head green cabbage, sliced into ribbons
2 carrots, sliced in half, then chopped
3 medium-large beets, peeled and chopped into 1/2 inch chunks
5 cups vegetarian chicken flavoured stock (more or less, depending on desired thickness)
Sugar (to taste)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Apple cider vinegar and white vinegar (to taste)
Sour cream to garnish (plain yogurt also works)

In a big soup pot, heat half the butter over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onions and cook till onions are glassy and soft. Season with salt and pepper. Add celery, red cabbage, green cabbage and carrots, and stir until the cabbage is wilty. This is when I added the second bit of butter (because I’m a fan.) and stirred it around till everything was nicely coated. Add the beet chunks and stir to mix well. Add stock to desired thickness, stir, season again if necessary. (I found I used a fair amount of salt because my stock didn’t have any.) Let cook over low-medium heat till all veggies are tender, about an hour.

This is where the experimentation started; I knew it didn’t taste like the soup I remembered from years ago, so I added some apple cider vinegar, and a bit of sugar. Gave it a good stir, and had a taste. It was definitely better, but the cider vinegar doesn’t seem to give it the nip that I liked so much, so I let it simmer in for another 10-15 minutes, and then I added about a tablespoon and a half of white vinegar. You could probably use white wine vinegar as well, and it might add a bit more depth to the flavours. I added a bit more sugar to round out the tartness, and let it simmer for a while longer (mostly because I took the dog to the beach and kind of forgot…). Because I started cooking at about 4:30 pm, by the time I was done with the soup, it was about 8:45 pm, so I had to satisfy myself with a couple of spoonfuls. You know, to avoid weirdo beet inspired dreams…But, I did make a container to take with me to work, complete with a bit of yogurt, so at lunch, there were mmmm-ing and yumm-ing noises coming from my cube that I had to excuse myself for. Honestly! I’m so proud of this – it is quite delish, and goes very well with a nice thick slice of rye or pumpernickel bread.

 A secret? I’ve eaten this every day this week for lunch, and am actually going to make another giant pot of it tomorrow – it’s that good!

Wasn’t gonna do it… June 11, 2010

But I’m afraid I’m going to have to post a recipe (or two). You see, I’m addicted to playing about in the kitchen. And I sometimes get a hankerin’ for something I haven’t had in a while, or that I’ve never had but think would be good. Or something that I’ve had but can think of all sorts of ways to make differently.

So. First the recipe that I’m so proud of because I came up with it all. by. myself. Okay, maybe I didn’t come up with it all by myself, because it’s not really a new recipe, but I created this thing out of thin air, mainly due to leftover tomato paste and navy beans which were originally purchased to be pie weights. I made some Greek style spicy chicken last week for the hubby, trying to garlic the man-cold out of him, and was left with a fair amount of tomato based products left over. So this week, I started thinking about how to use up a couple of Tupperware containers of red stuff that usually gets tossed after a few weeks in the fridge. I also remembered an episode of Chef at Home where he made a delicious looking White Beans and Bacon recipe. So I decided I would try my hand at some kind of bean recipe, and see how it turned out. There were various other things I ended up using up, like some lovely roasted tomatoes, and a few super spicy roasted Thai chilis that were on their way out. The whole thing took me a few days to work on, but I think it ended up turning out very well!

Spicy Maple-y Baked Beans

2 cups dried small white navy beans, soaked overnight (alternatively, you could use canned beans)
3-4 cups vegetarian chicken-flavored stock (or whatever stock you like, really – I had that on hand)

Glug olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 small – medium onion, roughly chopped
1/2 can tomato paste
14 oz. diced tomatoes
Handful of roasted cherry tomatoes, removed from skins
3-4 roasted Thai chili peppers, chopped (amount depends on taste)
1/4 cup maple syrup (amount depends on taste)
Salt and pepper to taste

Water

Soak and prepare the navy beans to almost cooked, with a bit of bite left in them. They will be cooked again in the tomato sauce, so they will soften further, and you want them to keep their shape.

While the beans are cooking, take a medium saucepan, heat the glug of olive oil over medium-high heat, then add the garlic and onions. Saute them until the onions are soft and glassy (or, in my case, until you notice that the garlic is dangerously brown), and then add the tomato sauce and the diced and roasted tomatoes. (A side note about the roasted cherry tomatoes – you don’t have to add them, it’s just that I didn’t know what to do with the cherry tomatoes, jalapenos and Thai chilis that were starting to get old on the counter, so I thought I would roast them and use them for something. But that’s also another recipe.) Mix them all up together, then add your chili peppers. Do this in bits, so you can gauge the heat. I added them all at the same time and realized that made the sauce very fiery. Which explains the maple syrup. So, depending on your preference, add a good bit of maple syrup to combat some of the fire from the chilis (like I did – probably a 1/4 cup), or be as conservative as you were with the chilis. (I have to say, I’m a big fan of jumping in with both feet and seeing what happens, although I sometimes end up with inedible food.) Let simmer for about a half hour till all the flavours are nicely blended, and if you’re like me, add a tich more maple syrup every now and then…

Now, here’s where my culinary adeptness hits a low mark. I didn’t actually consult any recipes or advice for cooking navy beans in their dried form, so I ended up with a slightly less than crunchy, not entirely pleasing texture to my beans that I knew I would have to fix if I didn’t want to throw out the whole shebang. So I added more water, and then added more water to the beans and continued simmering them for another 45 minutes (or so). I think the next time I make a recipe similar to this, I would almost use canned beans, although I suppose that might take something from my ultimate satisfaction at having cooked the whole thing all by myself.

So, to make a long story longer, I ended up mixing up the tomato sauce with the beans in a bigger pot, adding some water so nothing would burn, and then letting that simmer for another half hour to 45 minutes. Imagine my disappointment when I found that the beans were still pretty firm!! So, since I had the oven on anyway for a chicken, I put everything into a baking dish (well, 2 bread pans lined with tinfoil, actually…), added still more water (!!), sealed it all up nice and tight, and put it in the oven alongside the chicken. After an hour and a half, I opened up the baking dish, and spooned out a mouthful of the most lovely stuff. Think Heinz beans, but minus the mystery meat and various preservatives and plus a good bit of zip. (Because being French Canadian, I really do like the baked beans, just not the ones in the can.)

Note that photos will follow because, well, I can only do one creative thing at a time.