Quarantine Food Diaries,Beets Done 3 Ways, Blood Building, Smoked Beet Hummus, Slow Roasted Beets, and Raw Rainbow Root Salad

Beets Build Blood, in Traditional Chinese Medicine building blood maintains a  healthy energy level or chi, lack of good blood building results in lethargy in body and digestion.
Root veggies are one way of addressing stagnate chi in the body and this week they are the focus, primarily beets. Ayurveda tells us that the lack of healthy fire in the body or Tejas can be seen in bloating and gas and this is directly related to the lack of blood in digestion our first recipe kick starts the digestive fire to get things moving and blood circulating. Ultimately leading to renewed energy and good gut microbiome ( no bloating).

Rainbow Root Salad

1 kohlrabi

1 yellow beet

1 red beet

small piece of daikon

3 radishes

small piece of Jicama

1 small rutabaga

1 peach 

a bunch of rucola

some basil

dressing:

lemon zest, grated ginger, olive oil, balsamic glaze, smoked sea salt and pepper

all to taste

use the grating plate on a cuisinart,  or a mandolin to create julienned pieces of all but the red beet, do that separately and keep it separate until tossing the salad or it will dye the rest of the roots pink!

chop the peach and toss in the rucola and basil

add the dressing and red beets and enjoy raw and crunchy.

 Slow Roasted Beets

3 red or yellow beets

buttered pine nuts

maybe honey churned chevre

olive oil, balsamic glaze, black hawaiian sea salt, pink peppercorns

wrap each beet whole, skin on in foil and place in oven at 285F for two hours if they are small and three if they are big. They  should feel like a perfectly ripe peach under the squeeze of your oven mitt when they are done. Leave to cool in the foil for a few more hours.

unwrap and push the skin off the beets.

place a knob of butter or ghee in a pan and roast the pine nuts until butter is nicely nutty brown and pinenuts have taken on a little color.

arrange on a plate, drizzle with supremely good olive oil, balsmic glaze, a sprinkling of chevre that you have added a tsp of honey to and freshly ground pink peppercorns and black Hawaian sea salt. 

enjoy at room temp.

Smoked Beet Hummus 

3 medium red beets

1 tbsp tahini

1 tbsp extra virgin cold pressed olive oil

2 small cloves garlic

5 dashes liquid smoke

salt and pepper

This is a pure beet hummus, no bean filler it's all about blood building !

Cook the beets as described in the above recipe and peel when cool, pop in the vitamix with all other ingredients and adjust with salt and pepper.