We've had such a warm autumn that we had to delay harvesting our beets until this past weekend. Beets want a good hard frost to drive more sugar down into the roots, making them, um, sweeter. We kept watching for a frost ... "the frost is on the pumpkin" seeming to say October would be a reasonable time, not to mention past history, but we never got one till Friday night, November 2nd. Everything else in the garden was dead, dead, dead from the cold nights we've had ... once it even went below freezing but without a frost. Maybe that would have been good enough, maybe it's not literally a frost that's needed, but the beets came through those cold nights with very perky foliage so we knew we weren't doing them any harm by waiting a little longer.
Anyway, Saturday I pulled that perky foliage with gorgeous orange roots attached right out of the ground, laid them out to cure for a few hours, lopped off their ears, rinsed off their dirt, and popped them in the fridge. Now every time I open the fridge, I stand over them like Midas, rubbing my hands and dreaming about having yummy roasted golden beets for free for months to come. Sweet. Very sweet.
What's your favorite roasted beet recipe?
