There are few foods I don’t like, but beets top that short list. I’ve overcome my childhood aversion to many foods (cottage cheese, asparagus, spinach and pears, to name a few) but I'm pretty sure I just wasn't meant to eat beets.
The funn thing though is that I had this great dish at a tapas restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina and it had some golden beets in it. I kind of liked them. Then this week, I saw some really fresh-looking golden beets at the store this week and I figured it was a sign. After all, I'm always telling the kids to try "just one bite, in case you like it now." Maybe it was time to let that rule apply to me. Maybe I had finally swung over to the beet-lovers camp.
They were game, so we tossed the beets in the cart and finished up shopping. However, once I got home and eyed those globes on the counter, I realized two things: I really didn’t know what to do with them, and I really didn’t feel up to spending a bunch of time looking up beets in my cookbooks and figuring out how to cook them. I was in trouble – so I called my mother.
My mother loves beets. Nobody else in my family did, so I think she was a little puzzled when I asked, “What’s the best way to prepare beets?” Thankfully, Mom was on the ball “roasted is best, with some olive oil and salt and pepper, in a hot oven.”
“How long?”
“Oh, 20, 25 minutes, depending on how big you cut the pieces. And peel them first.” (good tip!)
“Can you eat the tops?”
“Well, you can….”
Enough said. The tops went to the hens and the roots went into a 400* oven.
About 20 minutes later, they were juicy, getting golden around the edges and smelling pretty good.
So, did I like them? Not really. I ate them but they weren't my favorite. The surprising thing to me though was that both my son and daughter loved them, ate seconds and raved about how sweet they were.
Guess I'll be making these again.
