Beets, Beets and More Beets - Part Two

The beets keep coming. After my last beet post I was left with 6 beets. I got my next CSA box and there were TEN beets in it! So, I've continued being inventive with my beets.


I had been considering trying to make a cake with them, figuring it might come out similar to a carrot cake. I found a carrot cake recipe online that looked pretty good. I made a few adjustments to it, and of course used beets instead of carrots. It came out incredibly well! It was quite tasty and you seriously could not taste that it was made with beets! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat flour)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (you can add nutmeg, too, if you like)
3 cups grated beets
1 cup chopped walnuts (or whatever nut you prefer)

Frosting:
1/2 cup softened butter
8oz soften cream cheese
2 cups confectioners sugar (could probably use even less, I actually cut the sugar from 4 cups to 2 and it was probably even a bit sweeter than I liked, but still good)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in beets. Fold in walnuts. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
4. To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost the cooled cake.


Even the kidlet approved!


I also used some of my beets to make a roasted root veggie medley. I used this Wolfgang Puck recipe, again I changed it a bit.

I couldn't find all the veggies and some I simply didn't want to bother with (like potatoes, seemed like a waste of space when you are using such fun veggies already). Here is what I did:

I used 3 carrots, 1/2 a celery root (mine was huge), 1 head of garlic, 1 onion, 2 turnips (on the smaller side), 2 small chioggia beets, 1 large golden beet, 1 fennel bulb, olive oil, salt, pepper and about 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped. I also peeled my garlic, so it did start to fall apart a bit. I think I'd still peel it just to save everyone the hassle of having to deal with the paper skins after it's cooked. Oh, and I purposely did not use regular, purple beets as I didn't want all my veggies to be pink.

I cooked my veggies at 400 degrees for about 90 minutes, stirring every 30 mins or so. They were amazing. I think my favorite veggies were the celery root and fennel. I only got a picture of them before they went in the oven. But they sure were pretty!


This weekend I plan on trying my hand at pickling some of the beets I have remaining. It'll be my first attempt at canning. Expect more on the beet front in a week or so!

Happy cooking!