Golden Beets

I tried to get a "food in books" post up and running for you for this month, but it looks like we'll just have to double up next month, because I haven't had time. BUT sneak preview: I'll be cooking from Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, and if you've read the book I bet you can guess what I'll be making. If you haven't, you're in for a (mushy) treat.

This entry is devoted to yellow food that isn't usually yellow. Namely, the Golden Beet. It may just be that I like yellow better than pink, but I personally think that golden beets taste better than their red counterparts--a little milder, so the flavor really stands out. You may remember that I used them in the Wild Rice Salad with Oranges and Roasted Beets in my last entry.

I really love them roasted, especially on salads:

Chopped small on a side salad (chickpea cutlet in the back! whoo!).

Making a nice beety halo around a wilted greens salad.

And my faaaavorite way to eat them: as raw ravioli with nut cheese!

Confession: in this picture, the beets had been roasted. But I've made this dish twice, and I swear the first time they were raw! And having bread on the side made the meal not raw anyway. The raviolis are filled with a thick almond/cashew cheese, which is watered down a little and given italian herbs to make the cream sauce. Yum!

Finally, while these aren't golden beets, they're a golden version of something else that's usually gold: carrots.

Have you ever tried yellow carrots? They taste exactly the same, but make me feel like I'm eating a different vegetable. I imagine eating purple carrots would be the same...