Friday, June 26, 2009

fickle

I assume when people say they like shrimp that they're lying. Objectively, shrimp is disgusting. It combines two of the worse aspects of food. The worst food texture? Rubbery. The worst food taste? Fishy. Shrimp? Fishy rubber. Rubbery fish. Yucky yuck.

I used to have bad feelings about beets, too: They were a revolting combination of sugar and dirt. But I recently tried fresh (versus canned) beets after years of not eating them at all, and my attitude has changed: Now I think they taste earthy and sweet, and I want to dye my hair with their juice.





Roasted Beets Over Arugula Topped With Goat Cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Make a batch of my Greek stepmother's dressing: 1 small, minced shallot; 3 tablespoons olive oil; 1 tablespoon GOOD balsamic vinegar; a pinch of sugar; some chopped herb (marjoram is nice, but anything will do); s&p.

2. Wash and trim most of the greens and the wartiest parts of the bottoms off a bunch of small to medium beets.

3. Make a foil packet for the beets. This is essentially going to be the beets' steam room, so leave enough room between them, and then fold it up nicely so the steam doesn't escape while they're roasting.

4. Roast until they can be sliced through with a sharp knife. Depending on the size of your beets, this could take 25 minutes to an hour.

5. When roasted to your liking, let the beets cool until you can handle them, then slide the skins off and chop into halves or thirds or quarters or eighths or whatevs.

6. While they're still warm, dress the beets very lightly, and let them sit for a bit while you troll the internets read a few pages of a Russian novel.

7. Dress a bunch of arugula with the same dressing and top with dressed beets and some goat cheese.

Leftover dressed beets will keep in the fridge for longer than it will take you to eat them, but not longer than it will take you to finish that Russian novel.

2 comments:

  1. You simply haven't tasted the right shrimp yet. That, too, will fall.

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  2. Mmmmm. Beets. I love beets. Fresh beets, canned beets, pickled beets, roasted beets. Beet tartar. Bashed beets. Pretty much any beet, any way, any day.

    Oh, and you're not dying. That's just what happens when you eat a bunch of beets.

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