Seasonal Eating – Beetroot Recipe round-up

Not much is growing in our back garden at this time of year, but my dad is still harvesting and sharing beetroot from his allotment. He gave us such a lot that I ate beetroot every single day for more than a week, and twice on some days so was in need of a selection of different recipes for a bit of variety!  Some of my favourite recipes are shared below, and  thanks go to Rosie at A Green and Rosie Life and Erin at The Rogue Ginger for allowing me to include links to their beetroot recipes. The post is also being shared on Rosie’s Going Green Linky.

Beetroot and Halloumi

Our favourite way of eating beetroot is a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s book Nigella’s Kitchen for beetroot pureed with lime juice and a little olive oil.  Nigella uses vacuum packed beetroot but if you are using fresh you need to trim the leaves (leaving a little of the stalk still attached) and boil  with the skin on until tender.  This year I have been saving energy by cooking the beetroot in my Wonderbag – I gently wash the beetroot and place it a lidded casserole dish and cover with water (it works best if the casserole is pretty full), bring to the boil for about 5 minutes and then pop it into the Wonderbag (the Wonderbag is an insulated bag which retains the heat so the food conitnues to cook without needing additional energy) for a few hours until we are ready to eat.  Once cooked, allow to cool a little and the skin can be easily peeled off by hand.  You will also have a casserole full of gloriously red beetroot water  which you can save to use in stock, soup or risotto.

Once peeled blend the beetroot with the juice of a lime and a little olive oil. Season with pepper.

Slice up a block of halloumi into about 10 slices and dry fry in a frying pan until browned.

Serve the halloumi over a bed of salad leaves (earlier in the year than now we would use rocket and land cress from the garden, along with marigold and nasturtium flowers but you can use whatever salad leaves you like).  Then drizzle the beetroot puree on top.

 

Beetroot, Potato and Chorizo Hash

Another easy recipe is this one which originally came from an Asda magazine. You can substitute other root vegetables depending what you have available, and could use leftover roast veg.

Preheat the oven to 190c.

Cut approx 300g of potatoes (you can peel them but I prefer to leave the skin on), 300g of beetroot (peeled) and one sweet potato (peeled) into cubes and boil for 5-10 mins.  Drain well.

Place the drained vegetables into a roasting tray with 2 red onions, peeled and cut into wedges, and 225g of diced or sliced chorizo.

Mix together 1tbsp sunflower oil, 2tsp wholegrain mustard and 2tbsp Worcestershire Sauce.  Pour the mixture into the roasting tray and stir to coat the meat and veg.

Bake for approx 40 mins, stirring after 20 mins.

Top each serving with a fried egg and season with black pepper.

 

 

 

I love risotto – I could pretty much eat it every day ( and before I had a husband and son to cater for I pretty much did, adding whatever other ingredients I happened to have).  So here is a link to my  Easy Beetroot Risotto  recipe, on the blog a few years ago.

 

My Beetroot and Fennel Soup recipe was from the really early days of my blog, so there is a link to the recipe but sadly no pictures as I hadn’t yet worked out how to add them!

I also made a Beetroot Cake which my son loved, mainly because he thought it was made with raspberries!  I much prefer this to the popular beetroot/chocolate cake combination.

Heat the oven to 180C.

Grease an 8 inch cake tin.

Mix together 250g self raising flour, 2tsp baking powder and 150 of soft brown sugar.

Then add 100g of sultanas and 250g of peeled, grated beetroot.

In a separate bowl beat together 150ml of sunflower oil and 2 medium eggs, then add into the dry ingredients and mix together.

Pour into the cake tin and bake for 1-1 1/4 hours.

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Fellow bloggers Rosie and Erin kindly shared these great beetroot recipes from their respective blogs. Follow the links to view the full recipes on the host blog.   A reminder that you can use the whole beetroot – don’t throw away those leaves.  I often freeze them to use as a spinach substitute if I don’t want to use them straight away.

What’s your favourite way to eat beetroot?

Grated Beetroot Salad:

Rosie at blog A Green and Rosie Life kindly shared her deliciously simple recipe. for Grated Beetroot Salad

Beetroot Leaves:

Erin at The Rogue Ginger shares her recipe for How to Cook Beetroot Leaves

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Easy beetroot risotto

After making Nigella’s fab halloumi with beetroot and lime, and adding grated raw beetroot to my sandwiches, we still had 3-4 small beetroot in the fridge towards the end of the week.  This recipe is a simple and quick version of beetroot risotto, maximising the potential of home grown veg by including the spinach like leaves and dispensing with precooking by boiling or roasting the beetroot first ( but by all means do this if you have more time than I).

Since I pretty much made this up as I went along, quantities etc are approximate and can be varied according to what you have available, and if course how many you are feeding.  This was for 2.

Beetroot risotto

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped ( I used red but it doesn’t really matter)

2 cloves garlic, chopped or crushed.

Beetroot ( 3-4 small) inc leaves.

Risotto rice (approx 100g per person)

Stock ( vegetable or chicken)

Cheese to taste – I used cheddar and parmesan.

Salt and pepper to taste.

A little oil.

Method:

Wash and peel the beetroot, separating and reserving the leaves.

Grate beetroot ( using a mini-chopper /blender is easiest)

Make up around a pint of stock to start with but have hot water ready to make up more as needed.

Add the grated beetroot to the stock and keep on a low heat.In a separate saucepan fry the chopped onion in a little oil to soften, adding the garlic after a minute or two.

After another minute add the rice and stir to coat in the oil.

Once it is well coated begin ladling in the stock with the beetroot a little at a time, allowing it to be absorbed before adding more ( you could add a little red or white wine before the stock if you have some open and handy.)

Stir in the washed and chopped leaves after about 10 mins.

Continue adding stock until the rice is cooked, which should be about 20 mins.

Turn off the heat and add cheese and seasoning to taste, then cover with a lid and leave for a couple of mins before stirring again.

To serve you can add more pepper and parmesan, and as we had some in the garden I topped with rocket.  Would be good with fresh crusty bread.