Beets-R-Us

Beets are GOOD! Who knew?

"What?" you say, "Beets?"
"Yes!" I say, "Beets!
We had beets last night. Did you know you can get a kid to eat beets if you tell them they'll pee purple? They may not eat a lot, but they will try a few. :D
Remember that Gordon Ramsay cookbook I bought a few weeks ago? I was in a gourmet mood last night, had some porkchops laying around (doesn't everyone?) and goofed around with his Braised Pork in a Rich Glaze recipe. It's supposed to be a pork loin you roll up and tie, so there had to be a few changes to fit it to a chop. So here's what I did:

Shopping list
3 tablespoons olive oil
medium cut pork chops
2 kinds of shredded or sliced vegetables, the more colorful, the better
Green onions
3-4 cloves of garlic
.5 cup of white wine or white wine vinegar
Fresh spinach or other dark green leafy salad greens

I heated a frying/sautee pan with 3 tablespoons of olive oil (good for your heart)
Before it was too hot, I placed the three chops in the pan (more chops if there's more in your group)
Brown the chops, then remove to a plate on the back of the stove.
In the same pan, add a couple of shredded carrots and a vegetable you need to get rid of. Ramsay used asparagus, but mine was frozen and I had a yellow squash that needed eating, so I sliced that up longways and threw it in. I also minced a shallot (something like a garlicy onion) while the recipe calls for garlic cloves minced. Use at least 3 for this. I also cut up a bunch (rubber banded) green onions.Add a half cup of cooking white wine or white wine vinegar. Put the chops back in the pan, dribble a bit of soy sauce on each chop, cover, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove the chops and serve the vegetables on a bed of leafy greens (fresh spinach is good).

I dislike recipes with a long list of ingredients, thus the beet recipe was right up my alley.

Shopping list:
1lb baby beets (I used three grown up beets for us)
Rock or table salt
2-3 tablespoons thyme
2-3 tablespoons butter
3-4 tablespoons basalmic vinegar

Heat the oven to 350F. Coat the bottom of a sheet of tin foil with rock salt (I used table salt, lots of it, and it worked fine.)
Wash the beets, trimming the tops only, and place on the salt bed.
Sprinkle beets with thyme.
Wrap and seal the beet package, placing it in the oven and cooking until the beets are tender. For 1lb of baby beets, it 15-20 minutes. For three big beets, it was more like 45 minutes.
Remove once tender, letting cool slightly. WEARING A PAIR OF RUBBER GLOVES, peel and then slice the beets. (Seriously, because you don't want purple hands)
Heat 2-3 tablespoons in a small pan, heating until the butter becomes foamy. Put in the beets and cook until coated in butter and glossy. Add the basalmic vinegar, 3-4 tablepoons, cook until butter and vinegar mix is syrupy.

My recommendation is to start the beets first, because the chops won't take long at all.

My next entry will be Sunday or Monday, due to the Knitting Retreat this weekend. Woo hoo! I'm totally excited and need to run off for groceries. The natives can't starve while I'm gone, you know. ;)