These Beats Wok!

I've been waiting to post on beets so that I could FINALLY use that title! :-)

So it’s taken me quite a few tries to find a “beetrific” way to eat beets without taking up hours of cooking time. I pretty much gave up, and considering I had gotten beets for the last few weeks in my CSA, I figured this week I’d get a break. Nope. More beets.

Here’s what showed up in the box this beet... I mean week:

Beets, the year’s first corn, the year’s first apples, squash and zucchini, sugar snap peas, potatoes, and tomatoes. Not pictured are the blueberries I munched on while I was posing my vegetables for their photo shoot. I also picked up some lettuce, peaches, and onions from a great farm stand on the way home from sailing yesterday. Sailing was fun, minus the weird wind patterns and Tim’s gashed out toe. Here’s us sailing the sunfish a couple years ago. Fun fact: I’m a certified “sailor” in the state of California. Yes, a class I took in college was on a lake, in a sailboat, and often times with the fear of God in me as I tacked.

So, there was a bunch of lingering beets I had to do away with from last week’s CSA pick-up, or I was going to go crazy looking at them. I tried the “5-minute beets” recipe from my favorite cookbook by Deborah Madison, “Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone”. Everyone should run out and get this cookbook. It has easy, quick recipes, but also complicated, intricate ones; everyone is full of flavor, local ingredients, and no meat. Yum!

5-Minute Beets

Adapted from Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone"

4 beets, about 1 lb.
1 Tbsp butter

salt and pepper

1/4 cup water

Lemon juice or vinegar to taste

2 Tbsp chopped fresh herb (dill, parsley)

Grate beets into coarse shreds. Melt the butter in a skillet (or wok, because beets wok!), add beets, and toos with 1/2 tsp salt & pepper to taste. Add 1/4 cup water, then cover the pan and cook over medium heat until the beets are tender. Remove the lid and raise the heat to boil off any excess water. Taste for salt, season with a bit of lemon juice or vinegar (red wine or balsamic is best), and toss in the chopped herbs.

I reluctantly began grating up the beets when I discovered a lovely surprise! These beets were beautiful chiogga beets with groovy spirals inside!

After grating up 4 beets (and a bit of my thumb, to boot), I sautéed them in 1 Tbsp butter and ¼ cup water in a big wok. After about 10 minutes (not 5), they were soft, delicate, and tongue-ticklingly sweet! I LOVED THEM! I’M A BEET LOVER NOW! I ate an entire plate of them with some potato slices I roasted with copious amounts of pepper and salt.

I brought some for lunch today; my little dish of beets reminded me of a swath of crumpled up, red velvet. Lunch also included 2 peaches, blueberries, Stonyfield plain yogurt, and an Amy’s California veggie burger on an English muffin. All was good in the lunchroom.

Book update: I’ve been reading “Cooking For Mr. Latte”. What a fun book about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness through cooking! I'm psyched to post some of these yummy recipes! (like Almond Cake!) Who should I pass it on to? Leave a comment about how much you’d like to read it next, and you may be the recipient of a new (used) book! I'll randomly choose someone on Friday, but ya gotta leave some love...

Half marathon training update: I dodged lightning bolts yesterday while squeezing in a 3.5 mile run. Outrunning an impending thunderstorm is one way to improve your running time!

My strength training was short, and I only did 100 crunches, 50 pushups, and 100 box squats. I did some serious stretching, especially after my long run on Saturday. This included leg stretches with my bands, and lots of foam roller work. I’ve scheduled myself for 4 miles this afternoon!

This half-marathon training has given me a new outlook on my ability to be patient with my body and my progress. It’s also given me a new appreciation for the sympathy I should have for my personal training clients! I’m really looking forward to the next 7 weeks of training, sweating, and meeting challenges I set for myself! I’ll be posting my training schedule soon, so you can follow along.

Question of the Day: How have you recently met a physical/athletic goal? How did you feel getting there, and how did it feel when you finally reached it?