beets in vinaigrette

It's just a couple of days until the end of summer. As much as I'd love to cozy up in a cardigan or bundle up under the covers with a cup of tea, I must say that I am loving the summer weather we are having. I guess because I was away most of August that having an extended bit of Vancouver summer seems to fit just right with me. Sunshine, bare legs and those lazy, hazy days. Summer please hang around just a while longer, okay?

While beets are not the most summery of vegetables, we did receive quite a bit in our CSA share, which is never a bad thing, cuz I love the beets and the beets love me. For this recipe I used some golden beets along with the plain jane regular ol' variety (which I actually like better because they seem to be much sweeter). The dressing has a nice sweet and sour balance that plays up the natural sweetness in the beets. The feta cheese is totally optional, but is oh-so-great crumbled over top.

While the salad is great on its own, it's also wonderful served on top of some bitter greens (our CSA is currently overflowing in bitter greens!). The beets and dressing help to cut all of that bitterness in the lettuce.

Browse my archives for more beet recipes:
beet & arugula salad with goat cheese & pecans
raw beet & carrot salad
beet greens & fried potatoes topped with poached eggs
beets, feta & pecan green salad with balsamic dressing

beets in vinaigrette
5 beets
3 T olive oil
2 T cider vinegar
1 T balsamic vinegar
1 small shallot, minced
1 t honey
salt & pepper
1/4 c feta cheese, crumbled (optional)

Boil the beets in their skins until tender (about 45 minutes or so depending on the size of the beets). Let cool and then slip off their skins which will remove quite easily. Cut beets into round slices or dice them. Your call.

In medium sized bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegars, shallot, honey, salt and pepper. Toss in the beets and coat well with the vinaigrette. Sprinkle the feta, if using, over top and serve.

dill, red onion & cheese drop biscuits

There are a few dishes that I make over and over again. The ones requiring a recipe are taped to the side of my fridge. The list includes bannock, Molly's scones, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and now there's this biscuit. I originally spotted the recipe on Bread & Honey and since then, I've made it countless times, always varying ingredients and so far, I've never been led astray. And it's versatile....it was a vegan recipe from the book How It All Vegan!that can be easily tweaked for dairy (like I have done below). They're good, easy and perfect as a side with soup or delicious spit open and topped with a poached egg.

dill, red onion & cheese drop biscuits
(adapted from Bread & Honey)
2 cs flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/4 c red onions, finely diced
1 T dried dill
a hearty grind of black pepper
a large handful of old cheddar cheese
2 T vegetable oil
1 c buttermilk or milk with 1 T vinegar or yogurt with a bit of milk mixed in

Preheat oven to 450F. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, red onions, dill, black pepper and cheese. Stir in the milk and oil and mix lightly until combined. Using a tablespoon, drop blobs of dough on a parchment covered or silpat lined cookie sheet. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes or until lightly golden. Makes about 6 - 9 biscuits.

root down: raw beet & carrot salad

There's a raw vegan cafe in town called Gorilla Foods. I like 'em and I love their Root Down juice which basically contains whatever you want to juice up. My standard juice order contains beets, carrots, lemon, orange, and ginger and it's so so so very tasty. So when I had some big ol' beets and some lovely multi-coloured organic carrots on hand, I decided to do a root down version in salad form. This isn't all raw since I'm using mustard and I think mustard is cooked...but I'm not a raw food fantatic so that doesn't matter to me anyway.

This salad turned out lovely. And I'm not talking about how pretty it looks in the bowl. I mean, look at it! Stunning! Ruby, purple, orange and pink...it's a visual masterpiece! For this recipe, I pulled out my Benriner Japanese Mandolin Slicerso everything is perfectly julienned, but you can use a food processor or just grate everything up by hand. Despite the time spent grating/julienning, it's a very simple salad to put together and there's a sweetness alongside a nice spicy bite. Oh yeah, and it's very healthy. Perfect for this time of year.

One more thing...I've been nominated for best food blog in Vancouver by the Best of 604 blog, so if you'd vote for me (before this coming Wednesday at midnight PST), that would be swell. Thanks!

raw beet & carrot salad
1 large beet, julienned
3 large carrots or 5 med-smallish carrots, julienned
tangerine or orange zest
juice of 1/2 tangerine or orange
lemon zest
juice of 1/2 lemon
2-4 T olive oil
1 T dijon mustard
1 T maple syrup or honey
1/2 t fresh grated ginger
salt & pepper

Combine the beets and carrots in a bowl. Mix the zest, juice, olive oil, mustard, syrup, ginger and spices in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Taste adding in more olive oil if you find it too sharp or add in more lemon juice to make it more tart. Toss with salad and let marinate for a few minutes before serving.

born in the 70's: braised green cabbage / brown rice with mushrooms

I curse the Vancouver winters for the short amount of daylight. Many days, we don't even get to see the sun...just grey, grey, grey. The lack of natural light (along with our apartment's low-energy bulbs) makes my photos brown and looking at them right now makes me feel like I'm back in the 70's. Throw on the corduroy, cozy up in an afgan and settle into an evening of orange and brown. The seventies weren't so bad, really. My mom took yoga and made her own yogurt and even took a self defense class where she could bust up a 2x4 with a swift kick and a power yell.

I made this brown meal after our trip to Portland. Too much good IPA and a stop (or two) for a Reggie Deluxe and we were glad to be back to the healthy drizzle of Vancouver. Portland was all about excess and this meal is about scaling back while still meeting the oh-so-important comfort quotiant. I've made Orangette's braised cabbage a few times and it's delicious. Sweet and soft and a meal in it's own right. And even if you are a bit ho-hum on cabbage, the braised carrots alongside are so rich and yielding that you can't believe that you just got all excited for a carrot.

But I didn't think the husband would be all that happy with a hunk of cabbage on his plate, no matter how bejewelled the carrots were, so I made some brown rice. After a quick look on the computer to see what I could add to make the rice a tad more appealing, I stumbled upon this recipe. Kalyn uses farro, but subbing in the brown rice was a perfect choice. The balsamic added a nice sweetness and tang to the dish and the brown mushrooms just multiplied the earthiness factor to the max. I threw in some barely steamed broccoli for crunch and colour and put on a little Jackson C Frank on the hi-fi. If a meal could make you feel healthy, wealthy and wise, this could be it. Ahhh, much better.

brown rice with balsamic, thyme and mushrooms
(recipe adapted from Kalyn's Kitchen)
1.5 c brown rice
3 c vegetable broth
1 T olive oil
1/4 c diced red onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 c sliced brown or button mushrooms
1 T fresh thyme, chopped (stems removed)
1/4 c balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper

1. In a medium sized pot, bring the vegetable broth to a boil. Add brown rice, cover and turn heat down to medium. When all the broth has been absorbed, rice will be ready.

2. Meanwhile, heat olive in a large skillet. Saute onion, garlic and mushrooms and add in the thyme. When the mushrooms are soft and have released their juices, stir in the balsamic vinegar and season with salt and pepper. Add the brown rice into the mushroom mixture and mix until all the rice has been coated with the mushroom balsamic sauce. Serve.

braised green cabbage with onion, carrot and hot peppers
(adapted from Orangette)
1/2 green cabbage, cut into quarters with most of the woody core removed
1 onion, quartered
4 carrots, cut into 3 inch chunks
1 hot pepper, seeds removed and diced
1/4 c vegetable stock
2 T olive oil
salt & pepper

Preheat oven at 325F. In a large oven proof dish, place vegetables into an even layer and cover with stock and olive oil. Give everything a good sprinkle of salt and pepper and cover tightly with a lid or foil. Bake for 1 hour and turn vegetables over if necessary, adding water if dry. Bake for another hour and then serve.

sautéed pea shoots, asian-style

I live on the outskirts of Chinatown where the markets are filled with all kinds of weird and wonderful things. While I'm not particularly attracted to the lizards on sticks, I will try various greens. Last weekend I headed over to my favorite market and a huge bag of pea shoots caught my attention. It was only $1 so I really had nothing to lose.

While pea shoots are quite common, I've never bought them before and really, had no idea what I should do with them. This was the very same weekend that I attended the Eat! Vancouver festival and interviewed a couple of Food TV celebrity chefs. So in my interview with Anna Olson, I asked her what she would do with the pea shoots. After discovering that these weren't the tender baby shoots, Anna suggested that I sauté them asian-style. So the next day, that's exactly what I did. Unfortunately, I didn't have garlic, so instead I subbed in some shallots along with fresh ginger. It was a worthy compromise. The soy sauce lended the much needed saltiness and the ginger added bite. Add freshly ground pepper if you'd like, but for me, this was pretty tasty as is.


sautéed pea shoots, asian-style
4 c pea shoots
1/2 t olive oil
1 t soy sauce
1/2 t toasted sesame oil
1 t minced ginger
1 shallot, minced

Heat olive oil in a large skillet or wok, adding ginger and shallots. Stir until golden. Add rinsed pea shoots. Once wilted, add in a couple shakes of sesame oil and soy sauce and sauté until fragrant, about 3-4 minutes.