Tag Archives: beets

Cooking Food Popular

Beet Hash with Eggs

It’s Saturday! My favorite day of the week. What I like to do on Saturdays is to stay in my pajamas as long as possible, not brush my hair, and basically aspire to be the definition of “unkempt” in the dictionary (remember those?).

But first, three things happened to me on Facebook this week:

  • I have relatives in Asia who post occasionally in Chinese. When I hit “Translate” on a post this week, this is what I got: “Baby Flash today to the waist, my home is caring said Filipino: his wife, I help you with your horse at night to kill the chickens! I think that is OK under the NIE just two, so was delighted to accept. Didn’t think she really be practiced! In my bed at night to enjoy professional massage essential oil. Joy you are my angel! muaaah!” Can this be right? Is my cousin okay, and where is this professional massage essential oil coming from? How did they know how to translate muaaaaah?
  • My sweet friend Danielle at Cozycakes Cottage posted about me to her zillions of followers not once but twice! Very kind of her.
  • A high school friend posted on my wall that she just read about me in this month’s issue of Redbook. I was hoping it was a surprise article wherein they unveiled a special subsidy for me to focus on nothing but eating delicious foods for the rest of my life, but when I went out a lunch to get a copy, it was just an article about jobs. I’m the second from the left. I guess my part of the planet is about 45 degrees offset from everyone else.

Anyway, on to the food. As some of you know, I generally try to make tasty foods that are also reasonably healthy — though I won’t compromise on flavor. One of my favorite magazines (uh, aside from Redbook of course) is Whole Living, which is filled with beautiful photography and prose that reduces your cortisol levels upon reading. I like to read about food before I go to bed, so it’s a standby on my nightstand.

I also really love beets. Check out my header.

So when I saw this Beet Hash with Eggs, I knew that it was a message from God. I shalt make thine Beet Hash, and I shalt make it on the day before the Sabbath.

So I did.

It was easy.

Boil peeled and diced beets and potatoes for 7 minutes, and then fry them up in a pan with some onions.

 Make four little wells in the hash, and fry up some eggs. That’s it! Well, mostly, read the recipe for details.

BEET HASH WITH EGGS (from Whole Living magazine, October 2012)

Ingredients

  • 1 pound beets, peeled and diced
  • 1/2 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and diced
  • Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
  • 4 large eggs
Preparation
  1. In a high-sided skillet, cover beets and potatoes with water and bring to a boil. Season with salt and cook until tender, about 7 minutes. Drain and wipe out skillet.
  2. Heat oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add boiled beets and potatoes and cook until potatoes begin to turn golden, about 4 minutes. Reduce heat to medium, add onion, and cook, stirring, until tender, about 4 minutes. Adjust seasoning and stir in parsley.
  3. Make four wide wells in the hash. Crack one egg into each and season egg with salt. Cook until whites set but yolks are still runny, 5 to 6 minutes.

Cooking Food

Herbed Quinoa with Beets

I’m a pretty dedicated carnivore, but every once in a while I read an article like this one about death by bacon and I think, “Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt for me to try to live 13% longer, just for today.” Even if the only result of all my recent working out is not awesome abs or toned arms, but bigger calves, and get this — a bigger butt. This was not what I was hoping to achieve. I may actually need to invest in a new pair of big butt jeans to accommodate. Yesterday I wore my jeans with a rubber band around the button, maternity-style. Sigh.

It was just me and the girls tonight, but I compensated for the meatlessness by clipping a few sprigs of jasmine from the garden and sticking them in a glass. So simple, but it smelled so fancy.

Jasmine

Anyway, back to dinner. I wanted to make something flavorful and filling, so I did a fridge raid and here’s what I found:

quinoa and beets
Quinoa and red beets

I heated up the oven to 400 and popped the beets in for an hour. I like to cook them in a covered ceramic container lined with parchment paper (for easy cleanup), but you can also just wrap them with aluminum foil. I’ve avoided cooking with aluminum foil ever since I read that it increases your chances of getting Alzheimer’s. I don’t need any extra help getting there.

I had cooked the quinoa the night before, but my favorite way to cook quinoa is in a rice cooker, so that it comes out perfect every time, but you can also follow the instructions on the package.

While the beets were roasting I grabbed some parsley, dill and scallions. Chopped them. Grabbed a handful of grape tomatoes and halved them with a serrated knife.

herbs

I made a quick little vinaigrette with 1/4 cup oil, 1/4 cup vinegar, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of salt and freshly ground better. Mixed it all up in a measuring cup.

Once the beets were roasted and slightly cooled, I peeled them (they slide right off if you apply pressure and push to the right) and diced them. I combined all the other ingredients, poured the vinaigrette over it, and tossed.

You know what? The kids actually liked it, and it was filling. Go keeeeeeeeen-waaaaaaaahhh!

HERBED QUINOA WITH BEETS

Ingredients

  • 3 cups cooked quinoa
  • 2 red beets
  • handful of parsley and dill, chopped
  • 4-5 scallions, sliced
  • 1 cup grape tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
  • 2 TBSP freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground pepper

Preparation

Roast beets in a covered ceramic container lined with parchment or wrapped in aluminum foil at 400 degrees for 1 hour. Meanwhile, chop herbs, slice scallions and halve grape tomatoes.

In a cup or small bowl, combine 1/4 cup oil, 1/8 cup vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Mix until uniform.

Peel beets and dice. Add the herbs, scallions, grape tomatoes, beets and vinaigrette to the quinoa and toss. Add salt and pepper and additional lemon juice to taste.

P.S. I didn’t do this but I’m thinking that adding a handful of toasted pine nuts to this recipe would make it extra delicious!