Beets

There are 6 years between my older and brother and I.  My mom had a couple of miscarriages, but they kept trying.  Finally, they got pregnant with me.  Sometime during that stressful first trimester, my Mom went to the bathroom and the pee in the bowl was dark pink.  My Mom started crying.  My Dad came running and they both stood there, not sure what to do.  Then, as the story goes, my Dad said, "Wait a minute!  We had beets last night!  Supposedly, my parents were dancing and crying in the bathroom because they had eaten beets.  That's what turned my Mom's pee pink.  It's a great image.  The dancing, not the pink pee - stay with me people.  I've never liked beets that much, but I'm glad to know that I was a very wanted child.

This week there are beets in the box.  What to do with them? I want to eat them, but I don't think I like them.  We decided to look for some "un-beet like" recipes.  Boy, did we find them.  But all of them required the beets to be cooked first.  *sigh*  Then we got a bright idea.  We roasted the beets in foil while we baked 2 loaves of Blueberry Zucchini Bread.  The foil pouch fit right into a metal loaf pan and now we have baked beets ready to go.  When the bread was done, so were the beets. 

Recipe #1:  Beet Hummus

Oh dear God, it was a spectacular failure.  The color was amazing.  The taste was horrible.  Really, really bad.  I'm disappointed.  The reviews were really good.  I followed the recipe because it was already too weird to mess with.  I don't like it when people review a recipe and complain that it did not turn out well; but then tell about all the tweeks they made.

Okay, I did not add lemon zest to the hummus, 'cause we don't have any.  I admit it.  I still think it would have sucked.  We washed it down the drain.

Recipe #2 Chocolate Beet Brownies

We omitted the almonds and wheatgerm.  We added a cup of chocolate chips.

The kid said "It's okay."  But she asked for more.  The Farmer initially said "It's not bad."  Not exactly a rousing endorsement.  But, he ate his whole piece.  I think it would be better with vanilla ice cream.  You cannot really taste the beets.  The general consensus is that it is worth making again, but with less cinnamon and nutmeg. 

So, I will never buy beets on purpose.  But when they come in the CSA box, I have a recipe to use them in that everyone likes.  That's a good thing. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  Blueberry zucchini bread rocks.