Tag Archives: Beets

Peace & Muffins

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It’s been a while.

I’m still living and working on a beautiful apple farm in the Finger Lakes of New York, still cooking and still trying to become wiser.

Our tribe here includes omnivores, but also a lot of vegans and paleo. In addition to this, we also have a lot of friends who have gluten allergies, a disturbing trend of this decade which I don’t understand, but which I know is real. Cooking for all of these people I love very dearly can be a challenge, but since food is something that can bring us together, I have to try.

This is an adaptation of an old recipe (http://www.philosophybistro.com/pumpkin-carrot-beet-muffins/)to make it vegan and gluten-free. I field-tested it at an amazing house party and with our barn crew, so I’m pretty confident.

Ingredients:

  • ½ pound shredded beets (or carrots & beets mixed) I have a scale, but you can also sort of figure out half of a 1 lb. bag of carrots
  • ½ cup almond flour
  • 2 cups gluten free flour (if you are using straight up gluten free, you might need to add some xanthan gum)
  • 1/3 cup of sugar or a paleo sugar substitute
  • 1 Tbsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp. cinnamon
  • ½ tsp mace (this gives it a little bite, but can be left out or replaced with ginger)
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ cup brown sugar or dark substitute
  • ½ cup raisins (Golden raisins are better)
  • 1 cup walnuts
  • ½ cup pumpkin seeds
  • 2 cup pumpkin
  • ½ cup oil (it might work without this, I liked making it with coconut oil.)
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • ½ cup orange or tart cherry juice
  • 3 Tbsp ground flax-seed
  • ½ cup liquid
  • Note: Fleggs if Paleo (flax eggs made with 1 Tbs finely ground flax-seed to 3 Tbs hot water) or super-fleggs (flax eggs made with 1 Tbs finely ground flax-seed to 3 Tbs hot aqua faba or chickpeas brine)

Step 1, Prepare Ye the way: Preheat the oven to 350°. Either grease the muffin tins or put in the cupcake liners (I usually spray a little canola oil in the bottom of these to make things come out easier). I get 2 dozen medium sized muffins out of this mix.

Step 2, sifting the dry ingredients: In one bowl crumble up the brown sugar, then sift (mix if you don’t have a sifter) in 2 cups flour, the other sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, mace, and salt. Mix thoroughly.

Step 3, making the “fleggs”: in a small bowl or cup, mix the flax seed with the liquid– aqua faba or water– and allow it to soak. after about 5 minutes, it should have a similar slimy consistency to eggs. I would whisk it before adding it to the mixture.

Step 4, shred the veggies & mix: Shred or grate the beets and/or carrots, and add the ½ cup almond flour to keep them from sticking together. Mix the shredded root vegetables, raisins, walnuts, pumpkin, juice (this needs some acidity for the baking soda), oil, vanilla, and fleggs.

Step 5, combining the wet and the dry: Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and mix well.  The consistency should be much firmer than batter, but a little more liquid than cookie dough. You can bake down a fresh pumpkin, but canned pumpkin is easier.

Step 6, baking: Fill two dozen or so muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 or more minutes. See how they look. Stick a toothpick in one and see if it comes out battery.

Enjoy! These are perfect breakfast, for late-night munchies, for bringing to pass at house parties, for supporting apple tree grafters, for taking along in your pockets as you go couch surfing, for sneaking vegetables into people’s diets, however you choose.

Waltzing (3 Beets)

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One of the things my mom taught me about food was to plan the plate so that there were a variety of colors. This is visually interesting, but also works nutritionally: Carbs tend to be white or tan, whereas healthy, fresh vegetables come in an amazing array of beet salad 1colors. Tans, browns, and greens are fairly easy–even yellows–but brighter oranges, reds, purples, are more rare.
This is a basic broiled beet recipe that can be served 3 ways. As my friend the beet expert points out, raw beets have most nutritional benefit, but these are a good dish. Also, you can just broil beets with a little olive oil and salt, and eat them like that.

First possibility: Broiled Beets

Ingredients:

  • 4 beets
  • 3 sweet potatoes
  • !/3 red cabbage
  • 1/2 red onion
  • olive oil
  • soy sauce or salt
  • red wine
  • other spices as desired
  • 3 cloves garlic

Step 1, Prepare ye the way: Scrub the skins of the beets & the sweets potatoes, and slice them about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch (you could peel them, but lots of nutrients are in the skin; texture, too).slice the cabbage and onion.

Step 2, Shake it up, Baby:Toss the vegetables together, with some olive oil and a bit of soy sauce & red wine. Oil a large iron skillet and put in the vegetables.

Step 3. Turn on the heat: Broil on high, taking out and tossing every 6 minutes, until the edges of the sweet potatoes and beet start to caramelize (“brown” if you aren’t familiar with kitchen lingo, “caramelise” if you prefer English, if you are a real geek, “Maillardize”–however the browning of the onions is pyrolysis because it is non-enzymatic).

Step 4, Watch out! It can burn: Repeat this 4 or 5 (or more) times, beet salad 2until the roots are cooked, but still firm, browned, but not burnt. When you are almost there, add the garlic., and put it back in (warmed garlic is aromatic, burnt garlic is nasty).

Step 5, to table: Serve as a delicious, nutritious and colorful side dish, either in the hot skillet (oh, the drama) or in a dish (oh, I can pass it).

Second possibility: Broiled Beet Salad

beet salad 3Only Step, Salad: Add a bit of vinegar, perhaps some more spices like rosemary to the broiled beets, perhaps some sliced carrots, allow it to cool, and serve it as a salad, or pack it (warm) in a big Mason Jar, and then let it cool and take it on a picnic.

Third possibility: Broiled Beet Soup

If you do this, I recommend undercooking the vegetables.

Step 1, Out of the skillet, into the soup pan: Transfer the vegetables into a soup pot, deglaze with wine, and add vegetable broth.

Step 2, A few extra things: Add a can of drained and rinsed kidney beans for texture and protein, cover and let simmer.Beets & Bialys jan 21 (2)

Step 3, Serve: Spice as desired, and serve with either Bialys or dark bread, and the option of sour cream. Another option is to mix the soup before serving with sour cream or crème fraise, which makes it a garish pepto-bismol pink.