Beets with Onion and Cumin

July 29th, 2008 Posted in Day to Day, Recipes

I like to eat as little processed food as possible and try as hard as I can to stick to whole foods.

Aside: If you’re interested in this subject read In Defense of Food by Micheal Pollan. I’m reading it right now and it’s really simple, straight forward and not preachy.

Anyhow, my diet requires that I make food from scratch as much as possible. I usually make large quantities as well, for left-overs and random food days at work. No complaints so far…

Also, as luck would have it, the drop off location for Plan B Organics in Dundas is in the back yard at work.  This has really helped me keep up my veggie intake.  It has also resulted in a few veggies that I wouldn’t normally buy.

This week I have beets. I’ve never cooked with beets before, so I listed off a few ingredients on allrecipes.com and found this little gem Beets with Onion and Cumin.

It is currently simmering.  I decided after a short discussion with Rob and Zoe, that I should blog about my experiments as some of them have turned out quite well. This will be the first of many recipe posts.  Please let me know if you try any of these and how they turn out for you.

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Just checked on it.  It’s incredibly pink an turning into a sauce.  I think I’m going to make some pasta to make it easier to eat. Back with more later.

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Okay.  Here’s the recipe with my modifications… I modify a lot. Sometimes based on need, sometimes preference… Either way it hasn’t failed me yet. *knock on wood*

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tablespoons canola olive oil
  • 1 small 2 large green onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, minced crushed
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seed powder
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 5 medium beets eighth’d , peeled and quartered
  • 2 tomatoes - peeled, seeded and chopped
  • 1 Zucchini sliced and halved
  • 1 1/2 cups water + some more when it got too thick
  • 1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Pour in oil and saute onion and garlic until translucent. Mix in cumin seed and saute an additional 2 minutes. Sprinkle in flour and saute 1 minute more.
  2. Stir in beets, zucchini, tomatoes, water, and salt. Reduce heat to low, cover pan with lid, and allow to simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until beets are tender.

RESULT

Really surprisingly good!  Much more interesting than eating boiled beets. The sweetness (and colour) of the beets really takes over. I might add more cumin next time. I ate it with some pasta as a pasta sauce.  I also sprinkled some parmesan cheese on there because I thought it could use a bit more flavour.

TIP

Don’t let it touch anything that you like the colour of, cause whatever it is it will turn pink. Beets are quite possibly the most dangerous vegetable I’ve ever cooked with.

PHOTO

Beets with Onions and Cumin