Roasted Beets

One of the joys that I find in cooking is when I can change someone's mind. When I can present someone with a certain food,dish, or ingredient that they don't particularly like, watch them taste, tentatively at first, and then scarf it down like its their first meal in days. We all have likes and dislikes that are truly part of us, but there are a lot of food dislikes that exist simply because your previous experience is with a bad version. If you have dined at Chez Zube a couple of times, chances are pretty high that you had glazed carrots. They are always a hit, and yet how many people out there don't like cooked carrots. Take three seconds and you can rattle off the most commonly disliked veggies: brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, peas, turnip, and beets. Want to know a secret? No vegetable tastes all that great that has been boiled to death, microwaved, or commercially canned.

Wife Zube continually holds that we will be able to feed our future children glazed carrots and roasted beets while calling them candy. They do have naturally occurring sugars, but it is up to you to bring them out.

These beets are delicious, easy, and will stain your fingers purple for a little bit! Go to your grocer, buy a bundle of fresh beets, and return to your abode. Preheat the oven to 300F and while it warms up wash the beets, trim them, and wrap them in foil with some salt and a tidbit of water.



An hour and a half later pull the packet of veggie candy out of the oven, crack the foil, and let cool slightly. The tip here is that the warmer the beets are the easier they are to peel. Cold beets are a huge pain to peel. I like to quarter the beets right away. When I don't use them right away (but you should) the microwave (a.k.a. jukebox, zapper, etc) does heat them nicely with little side effects. A good dish idea for these succulent puppies is arugula, goat cheese, pecans, beets, and a light (viscousity not caloric content) vinaigrette. Balsamic would work or you can make your own. Not sure how to do that? It is a soon to be posted post! MUHAHAHAHAHA!