Or, how I overcome my lifelong distaste for the humble beet.
I admit it — I’ve never been a big fan of beets. Perhaps a part of that is the way I was raised on them; like most vegetables as a kid in my family, they only came out of a can. I also used to hate asparagus and other vegetables until I realized that they didn’t HAVE to be mushy, packed in a can and tinny-tasting. I fell in love with vegetables when I got out out on my own and discovered that, hey, guess what? Vegetables actually grow out of the ground, and they can actually be picked or bought and cooked fresh. Revelation!
But beets….I’ve never developed a fondness for them. I know they’re good for you — but at a recent wellness retreat I went to, I made more of a commitment to add even more superfoods into my already pretty healthy diet. I’m a huge fan of many of the superfoods that contain a lot of great stuff for us, from healthy natural fats to minerals and anti-oxidants. Avocados, nuts, blueberries, cacao, coconut and other foods are in my weekly diet.
I just never could get a handle on beets.
The power of beets
It was reiterated to me just what a superfood beets are; and one day at lunch on the retreat, we were served a delicious veggie sandwich. I saw slices of grilled zucchini, mushrooms, and something else that was delicious but that I just couldn’t put my finger on. I asked the chef and, guess what? It was a thinly sliced golden beet! So I decided to revisit the humble vegetable and see if I could find various ways, like that sandwich, that I could enjoy beets.
I found a promising recipe for roasted beet hummus in this month’s issue of August Woman, a magazine that I’ve contributed to regularly for more than a decade (check out my story on women-backed nonprofits in the same issue!). I admit to borrowing their awesome title for this post. With my bag of beets in hand, I first roasted them (both sliced, for sandwiches; and cubed, for the hummus).
The hummus turned out pretty good. I absolutely adore hummus and always have some in my fridge, and my preference is the basic old-fashioned kind, with lots of lemon and garlic. The beet hummus was lighter and a little sweeter, but I do enjoy it a lot.
I also have been putting the slices into my sandwiches, and that is good, too!
Lastly, I even used the beet juice that came out of them to make a little pot of lip stain, using this recipe.
