I am not a fan of beets. The flavor is just…. ugh. However, putting bits of them on salads and stuff is fine. Or mixing the beets up with other things.
I only made fresh, baked beets once. The juice went everywhere, and a mishap splatted my kitchen floor with juice that looked disturbingly like bloodspray. 😦
However! I’ve been hearing beets are good for anemia (which, apparently, I have the joy of experiencing) and so I thought I’d give ’em another shot.
Fresh cooked beets are different from canned beets in three ways:
1. COLOR. It’s so much brighter, and it is kind of pretty.
2. They’re sweeter and taste better.
3. They are more fibrous (not in a bad way).
Anyway, I gave them another shot, with the intention of putting them in smoothies.
Cooking Beets
1. Take beets, straight from store, chop off any greens on them(leave stems about 1″ from beetroot) and trim no further on either end or you will end up with the arterial beet bloodspray after they cook. MESSY! Keep the greens for later smoothies. They are good for you.
2. Don’t wash the beets. It does this whole steaming thing and you don’t want that.
3. Line a baking sheet with some tin foil, put beets onto it and pop into the oven.
4. Cook at 400 degrees for one hour. (any longer and you will be losing some nutrients and such)
5. Take them out and let them cool.
6. Take a butterknife and trim the ends off. Skin them by sliding the knife under the skin, then peeling the piece off. It’s kinda tricky but you’ll get the hang of it.
7. Chop each beet into 4 pieces or more to make it easier to use later. Bag up and store in the fridge or freezer.
Beets smoothie, before greens have been added
Beets Smoothie
This is very much like the other smoothie I posted for the Magic Bullet.
Ingredients:
-1/2 fresh cooked beet
-Small handful shredded carrots or matchstick carrots
-2 or more 1″ chunks of fresh pineapple
-Several leaves of green ruffled kale
-1 cup applejuice
Instructions:
Put in beets, carrot, pineapple, applejuice, and blend. Add kale (use as much as you want. Or sub spinach if you need to), and blend.
Final product. YUM!
My experience with this smoothie is that it comes out kind of chunky but that is part of its charm. I made one for my mum the other day out of canned beets and it didn’t have the awesome color (it was a meek pinkish brown) and it was more homogeneous which, surprisingly, was not a bonus, and it wasn’t as great a flavor. Less sweet and less “omg i want to keep eating this”. It was just alright.
I hope you give it a try and enjoy this one as much as I do. Beets and Pineapple especially are chock full of good vitamins and nutrients. And carrots, also, are no slouch. (In one serving, Beets have: 27% Folate (B9), 6% Iron, Vit C, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorous. Pineapple has: 44% Vit C, 43% Manganese, 7% B1, 6% B6. Carrots have: 104% Vit A, 77% Lutene, 8% Vit C, B3, B6, 5% Iron. Apple juice has: 6% Vit C. Kale has: 76% beta carotene, 778% Vit K, 49% Vit C, 20% Manganese, 7% Iron, 11% B6, 6% B2, 5% B1, Magnesium, Potassium. *And Spinach, in case you use that, has: 490% Vit K, 59% Vit A, 52% Beta Carotene, 49% Folate (B9), 21% Iron, 13% Vit E, 10% Calcium.) But keep in mind that certain vit/minerals inhibit the absorption of others.
~Stay tuned for my forays into Blackstrap Molasses, something used as a sort of folk cure for anemia. Hooo-boy that stuff is…. special. (noxious comes to mind.) But I kept experimenting and I think I have a drink down now that makes it pretty palatable. (go me! lol)~
veganallergist 