hungry poodle

I used three kinds of beets, including golden and variegated. The beautiful colors are jewel-like.

If you say you don’t like beets, you’ve probably only tasted the ones that come in a can or a jar. The difference between fresh and canned beets is profound, I think. Perhaps it will help to know that typical red garden beets are a close relative of sugar beets, which provide us with the white sugar that eventually ends up in much of the processed foods we hate to love. So don’t say you’re completely off beets. You probably eat some version of them every day!

Following is a recipe for roasted beets that you should try, because beets are healthful, because they’re unfairly maligned (due to the tinny flavor of the canned ones) and most of all because they are downright delicious.

Here’s what you do: Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut greens away from beets, leaving about 1/4″ of stem. Scrub them well and place in a baking dish. Add 1/4″ of water to dish and cover tightly with foil. Roast small beets for approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Larger beets will take up to 60 minutes. Beets are done when a knife slips through them easily.

Remove from oven and allow to cool a bit. Then cut stems and slip off skins. You can serve them warm, at room temperature or cold. I cut them into chunks, drizzled them with light balsamic vinaigrette and served them with slivers of basil and chunks of goat cheese alongside a green salad. I roasted plenty of them, refrigerated whole extras and cut them up for salads for several days.

By the way, although beets are usually considered to be a winter vegetable, they’re best in the summer months when you can get the smallest, most tender ones at farmers’ markets.

Roasting vegetables has recently become a very popular way to prepare all kinds of vegetables. One of my favorite side dishes is roasted, sliced  potatoes tossed with various green vegetables such as asparagus and green beans and sprinkled with real Parmesan cheese.

I’m a big fan of broccoli, but I’ve always considered it to be “unroastable”. The flowery stalks, I thought, would come out burned while the stalks would still be uncooked.

Not so. Ina Garten introduced me to roasted broccoli via her “Back to Basics” cookbook, and I’m now hooked on it. Of course, Ina dresses it up with lots of flavors–garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, toasted pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and julienned fresh basil leaves.

I’ve simplified it just a bit. No pine nuts or basil (I think I’ll save those for later in the spring). I found the garlic, lemon rind, lemon juice and Parmesan to be quite enough. Fabulous, and such a nice change from plain old steamed broccoli. The oven heats up the kitchen on a cold day too!

1 large head broccoli
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced thinly
Olive oil
kosher salt
Pepper
1 t. grated lemon rind
2 T. fresh lemon juice
Grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut broccoli into florets with about an inch of stalk attached to the florets. Place the broccoli in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Toss garlic slices on broccoli and spray well with olive oil (or drizzle oil over and toss). Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Roast for about 20 minutes or until broccoli is crisp-tender and the tips of the florets are browned.

Remove from oven and toss with lemon zest, lemon juice and grated Parmesan cheese. If you want to follow Ina’s recipe, add lots more olive oil, toasted pine nuts and julienned basil leaves.

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One of our  family’s favorite Thanksgiving traditions is this sweet potato casserole. My daughter Elizabeth, who has been known to cast a suspicious eye on my attempts to lighten up recipes, once said to me, “Now don’t go messing with this recipe. It’s perfect just the way it is.”

It took me years to admit to her that it came from an old Cooking Light cookbook. It’s not exactly diet food, but it’s a good example of how you can take a typically fat-laden recipe and make it lighter, and better, without sacrificing an ounce of taste. I’ve reduced the brown sugar in the sweet potato mixture because it’s already fairly sweet, and don’t leave out the vanilla; it’s is a must.

2 egg whites (or 1 egg*)
3 cups cooked mashed sweet potatoes (about 2 1/4 lbs.**)
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup nonfat milk
2 T. butter, melted
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. salt

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 T. butter, chilled
1/3 cup chopped pecans

Combine first 7 ingredients in a bowl and combine. Spoon mixture into an 8″ square baking dish or gratin dish that’s been sprayed with nonstick spray.

Combine 1/2 cup brown sugar and flour in a bowl and cut in the chilled butter with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture is crumbly. Stir in pecans and sprinkle this flour mixture over the sweet potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Serves: 8
WW Points per 1/2 cup serving: 5
(* if made with a whole egg, each serving is 6 points)
(**3 large or 4 small sweet potatoes)

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