The beets have me beat

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I've been sucked into the world of the Olympics. I have suddenly developed an interest in all sports on ice, snow, and little bumps called "moguls."

As such, my posts have fallen behind.

I finally decided to try a new beet recipe (we're talking several weeks ago now.) I had already tried making a beet salad; I moved to a pureed beet soup; neither were satisfying to the palette (well, *my* palette.) My friend Jenn suggested a beet cake. Why not? Carrot cake sure is delicious!

I decided to try and increase the chances of success with a recipe that included a cream cheese icing. Things that I learned while making this recipe:

1. Grating beets by hand is ridiculous. Use a food processor, but take pictures with the hand grater because it's prettier.
2. Don't leave any important mail on the countertop. The beets will fall on it. Your mail will turn pink.
3. Grated beets look like worms.
4. The cake will first look magenta -- it then bakes to an auburn.
5. Beet cake smells like horse feed (thanks, Susan.)
6. Beet cake tastes better with cream cheese icing.
7. This recipe does not make me love beets.

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It looks like the beets have me beat. But as I mentioned before, my posts are very behind (although I am now an expert judge in moguls: keep those knees together!) I have recently discovered my first use of beets that I can safely say is delicious... stay tuned...

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Boy, am I ever beet.

From Food

December came and went and I only blogged 3 times! So terrible, but as Scarlett said "...tomorrow is another day" and things can only get better.

I've wanted to post about beets for a while now. We've gotten them twice so far in our CSA box and we are expecting more this week.

My first attempt at cooking beets was in a steak salad. I can't even remember which recipe I used, or if I even used a recipe. Yes, it was that unmemorable. I decided to boil the beets rather than bake them; I seared up a steak like I usually would, and then I made a delicious garlicky dressing.

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Sure, it was tasty, but mostly because the steak and the other salad ingredients masked the taste of the beets. I do have to admit that beets are one of the prettier vegetables.

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My second attempt at a beet dish was a roasted root vegetable soup. There were only two red beets, 3 or 4 light coloured beets, two celeriacs, sweet potato, turnip, and multi coloured carrots. It still came out beet red. (I've used that term dozens of times and only now do I realize what vibrant shade of red I was depicting.)

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Again: a very pretty tray of roasted vegetables, but this is not a food pageant. I didn't think it was possible, but the soup had too many layers of flavour. The beets, turnips, and celeriac were all too strong. Next time I will just pick one strong flavour (maybe two at the most) and add mild root vegetables. Not exactly yucky, but not the most delicious bowl of soup.

This Thursday comes another chance at beets. I'm beginning to realize that perhaps beets need a recipe. Someone who has spent many a day in the test kitchen finding the perfect recipe. Any suggestions? Because this beets the heck out of me.

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C is for Cookie

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This is my favourite cookie recipe ever. And I've made a many cookies.

(I leave out the cinnamon. Cinnamon and chocolate? Yucky. At least in this recipe. If you're more of an oatmeal-raisin cookie fan, then switch the chocolate for raisins and leave the cinnamon. Cinnamon and raisins? That's yummy.)

Not only is it only 87 calories per cookie, but they are also made with whole wheat flour. Wait! Don't leave! The whole wheat flour really works with this recipe. It stands up to the heartiness of the oatmeal. That, and you can't even tell that it's whole wheat (unlike when you eat whole wheat pasta. Yucky.)

I made a double batch of these cookies for my colleagues at work when I left for a job rotation. They're basically my go-to cookies. Dustin's rating? 8/10. but only because I put 3/4 cup of chocolate chips. If you're a chocolate lover, and don't care about the calories, try 1 cup or even 1 1/4 cups. I don't know if I'd do much more than that... If you do, maybe try the mini chocolate chips.

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Some other recipes I've done recently: Anna Olsen's Lemon Cheesecake Mousse, and Ina's Chocolate Cupcakes and Peanut Butter Icing. Both sublime. Er... I guess the cheesecake is sub-lemon?

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Yucky

From Food

My name is Kelly, and I'm a Food Addict. "Hi, Kelly."

I love to cook, bake, eat, watch Food Network, read food blogs, go to Farmer's Markets, walk down every aisle of the grocery store, get food flyers in the mail, read food flyers online, read cookbooks like novels, read food magazines like novels and I love to blog about food.

In all the cookbooks, blogs, and foodtv shows, the food is always portrayed as being amazingly fabulous. I'm picturing Giada De Laurentiis closing her eyes and exhaling a sensual "MMMMMM...." barely after the fork has touched her mouth.

Is it always that delicious? Does their food always taste that good?! Probably not, and it would be really nice if they admitted it once in a while. *Sometimes* I would see Jamie Oliver taste something and say that it needed more salt -- but only sometimes.

I do a lot of learning by figuring out what does NOT work well. There needs to be a show like What Not to Wear, but about food. How Not to Cook. Stacey and Clinton would surprise people in their kitchens and show them footage of all the terrible things they're doing to food.

I will kick it off:

Do not grill mature zucchini.

Usually, my favourite way to eat zucchini is thickly sliced, covered in a good olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper and then thrown onto a hot grill. Since I still had half of a giant zucchini, I thought I would cook it just like that. Doesn't it look delicious?

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Not this time. It was quite yucky. It did not hold together well, and it did not have a juicy bite. It was mushy and quite dry.

I've discovered that when a zucchini gets to be really large (or mature,) it needs to be treated much more like a squash. It needs to be stewed, or used for baking. Chinese cuisine uses lots of mature melons for stewing or for soup. If only my mom was more computer savvy to tell me how she would have cooked the zucchini: Stewed Beef Brisket and Zucchini in a Garlic Black Bean Sauce. (And this is the point in the show where Stacey would say "Shut, Up!")

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