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Tag: beets

Beet Cabbage Shred

Looking back, it seems that I only ever posted the rough draft of my beet cabbage shred (based on Orangette’s Red Seasonal Salad). It’s something I make pretty frequently, now, so it has a more regular form. I guess I should write it up properly.

Beet Cabbage Shred

Peel your beets. Cut them in half, and then slice them thinly into half rounds. This is fast and small enough, but feel free to juillienne if that appeals to you more.

Cut off a chunk from a purple cabbage head and slice it thinly so that it shreds. You should have anywhere from equal amounts beet and cabbage to twice as much cabbage.

Peel a purple onion, slice it in half, and then cut paper thin slices off of that.

Alternate handfulls from these three piles into a large container so that you start the mixing process.

Depending on your tastes and the spiciness of your peppers, take one or two jalapeno peppers. Cut the flesh off the pepper and slice them into thin strips. Add to the mixture.

Add a tiny pinch of salt, about a teaspoon of sugar, a generous grinding of pepper, and then start mixing properly.

Squeeze 2 limes into the countainer. And add about 1/8 of a cup each of rice vinegar and red wine vinegar. Mix thoroughly. Taste. See if it needs more sugar, acid, or pepper.

If you have fresh, add cilantro and/or parsley.

This lasts at least a week in the refrigerator. And we aware that eating large quantities of this will make you excrete purple – that’s not a health problem.

Riffing on soba noodle salad with black rice noodles and beets

So there were pretty beets at the market. Well, about a week and a half ago… but they’re still in my fridge. And I’d meant to make my usual beet and purple cabbage shred, but there haven’t been any purple cabbage these days. So I’d been pondering what to do with them.

I didn’t want to substitute a different variety of cabbage because the color bleed would be unfortunate. So I’ve just been sitting around with beets and not using them.

I also have in my pantry a package of black rice noodles. I had a plan to use them in some showy way for company… possibly as a cold soba type salad variation.

And then I just sort of played from there.

Cold Black Rice Noodle and Beet Salad

Julienne 4 raw beets (but it could easily have been a few more).

Boil some water

Julienne carrots until you have about a third the quantity of beets. You could also throw in some red bell pepper or cucumber or whatnot.

Cooking the noodles – do not believe the package! The package says to put the noodles into the cold water, bring it to a boil, and then cook for a few minutes. This will lead to mush and tears. Instead, boil the water, turn the heat OFF, then add the noodles (I did two of the little wrapped packages, so that’s about 5 ounces), and within a minute or so they will be plenty soft. Rinse under cold water to stop the cooking even though you will lose starch. Actually, for these purposes, there wasn’t much harm in losing the released starch.

Dump the noodles in with the vegetables.

Squeeze 2 limes, add 2 Tablespoons of black vinegar and about an eight of a cup of plain rice vinegar, sprinkle in about 2 teaspoons of brown sugar, and a healthy glug of toasted sesame oil. Mix that all together and see whether it feels like the proper amount of sauciness and whether the tastes are balanced.

Toast some unsweetened shredded coconut, and add it (this really improved the dish!).

And then feel free to go through your cupboards looking for other fun things. The only thing else I added were some toasted almond slivers, but sesame seeds or tofu or more vegetables all would have been good. Cabbage would be a good addition, too.

The end result was charmingly vegan and gluten free, but I was tempted to try adding a splash of fish sauce, and it’s with noting to people with dietary concerns that the noodles contain corn starch.

And now I know what I’ll be taking to the next food blogger pot luck.

tomorrow morning

To Do List

Cooking with Catladies – experiment 1

  • Thai beet slaw/salad (needs a better name)
    • peel and slice thinly 1 beet
    • shred a complementary amount of purple cabbage
    • halve a purple onion and slice one thinly
    • Jalapeno, seeded, sliced into thin matchsticks (core reserved for stock)
    • make dressing of:
      • 1 clove garlic, minced
      • 2 tsp sugar
      • 1 teaspoon vinegar (still haven’t decided between rice vinegar for the thai theme or red wine vinegar for the color theme)
      • juice of 1/2 lime
      • 1 tsp good olive oil
    • toss together with some generous grinds of black pepper
    • give a further toss with 1 Tbsp chopped cilantro
    • ETA:decided on 1 teaspoon of each kind of vinegar – needs more lime juice!
  • Thai-inspired chickpea taco filling (version 1)
    • Drain a can of chickpeas
    • fry 1 tsp shredded fresh coconut (no really, from a coconut – no sugar added), purple onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro stems, jalapeno flesh in 1 tsp olive oil.
    • Add half the can of chickpeas, juice of 1/2 the lime, 1 bay leaf, and some lime zest
    • Add a mixture of vegetable stock and water and cook until no longer thin.
  • Thai-inspired chickpea taco filling (version 2)
    • fry 1 tsp fresh coconut in 2 tsp olive oil
    • add 1/2 tsp thai green curry paste
    • Add the rest of the chickpeas and a similar mixture of vegetable stock and water
    • cook until no longer thin
  • ETA: Instead of one or the other, it should be both – add some green curry paste to the first recipe to give it a yummy base flavor. And don’t forget to add a little salt in the cooking

Vacuum floor
Hang up stuff in closet
Clean off kitchen table
1 hr pilates
shower

ISO Foodies 4 soup help

I had beets and chicken stock and the brilliant idea to combine them together to make soup. And yet I have an irrational distrust of borscht (which I know kinda just means soup, but you know what I mean).

So I looked through my cookbooks (and gave a cursory glance at the internet) for beet soup recipes that were not called borscht. And didn’t find any of them appealing.

Instead, I made shit up on my own.

Here’s what I have done so far:

  • sliced thinly and sauteed leeks (white and green part) until thoroughly cooked. Season with salt as it sweats.
  • Add 5 cloves of garlic, minced, and 1/2″ of ginger, minced – saute for 3-5 more minutes
  • Add some fennel, 4 beets, and 1 cup of stock and let simmer for 30 minutes
  • Add a can of coconut milk (and if I’d thought to add some lemongrass at the beginning with the leeks, that would have been awesome) and the rest of the stock. Season with salt and pepper and 1 clove.
  • Let cook down
  • Refrigerate overnight and skim some of the fattiest layer

And then I tasted it, and it needs something else. I was kind of thinking that it needed a can of black beans (and my usual go-to friend for food agreed, but I’m having second thoughts. My mother argues that black beans would be the same kind of flavor family as the beets and leeks and that there needs to be contrast. One of the other beet soup recipes I have calls for an apricot puree swirled through the soup, and that might be right. We did decide that thai basil was not the right accoutrement.

food list

food I have
Produce
3 bananas
1 small potato
orange juice
2 grapefruits
5 beets w/ greens
collard greens
1.5 small zucchinis of imminent doom
5 leeks
buncha scallions
2 red bell peppers
1 orange bell pepper
inner half of a bunch of lettuce
leftovers from a portabella fajita
almost 1pt of leftover baighan bartha (eggplant curry)

*no carrots, buy more *done*
*no hot peppers, buy more

Meat
1/2 a container of stock
5ish 2ish ounces of pork slow-cooked with taco seasoning, orange juice, and stock (Mmmm!)

Meals planning
Thursday, June 26
going out for dinner

Friday, June 27
roast bell peppers (and zucchini?)
breakfast: Kenyan collard greens (buy a tomato) over a bagel with cream cheese
lunch: anyone want to meet for lunch?
dinner: spicy tofu with beet greens

Saturday, June 28
breakfast: grapefruit – stop by produce truck and look for other sexy fruit
Start soup – clean leeks, cook them down with oil (set some aside with a lot of salt for snack food), add carrots. And then figure out what kind of soup you are going to make from that. (ETA: Apparently, this soup should also include beets)
dinner: salad. So I have this intricate salad planned, but it’s missing an ingredient or two. Here’s what I’m thinking – lettuce (natch), carrots, raw zucchini, taco pork, banana, scallions, and then I’ve made a salad dressing with balsamic, tamarind juice, honey, mustard. My mother thinks this could also use some mandarin oranges… and maybe I could go orange segments, but probably my grapefruit would be too overpowering. I think this also needs nuts. I’m thinking cashews, but I only have almonds, walnuts, and pecans – and I don’t see buying a whole container of cashews just for 1 Tablespoon worth. But it needs a salty, doesn’t it? *Done – cashews were a tasty addition*

Sunday, June 29
take bagels to my parents
eat dinner at Legal’s (I think I’ll go to the wood-grilled wild salmon)
give mother – argh – I was just looking at something the morning and reminding myself to take it this weekend. Oh, and the heavy cream.
get from mother – books to repair, leftovers
return bras to Lane Bryant
stop by Whole Foods on way home (if still open) and see if they have more conditioner and 1lb of spring mix for a reasonable price

Monday, June 30
breakfast: bagel w/ roasted pepper cream cheese
make rice for baighan bartha, and put up portions for lunch.
dinner: quesadillas – use up portabella leftovers, some of the leeks, the last of the roasted bell peppers, and the last of the collard greens.

Tuesday, July 1
dentist appointment at 11am
therefore, have to do weight watchers meeting at 12:30, rather than 11:30
therefore, request medical time from work.
breakfast: mango from fruit truck
dinner: something with beets. And 1 potato (if it survives that long). Ooo… maybe I should put those in the soup. Are there any soup recipes with beets that are not borscht?

Wednesday, July 2
time for a dinner out

Thursday, July 3
dinner plans in

Friday, July 4
D&D