Beet-y Delight

This morning, I noticed that two of my beets were showing their shoulders above the soil (I've been ready a lot of gardening message boards and blogs to find out when my beets and carrots will be ready and they say that you'll see their "shoulders" above the soil level.) Well, one of them looked pretty tiny, so I decided to leave them both in the ground. When I got home this afternoon, a pesky squirrel had picked the tiny one and eaten half of it! I was steamed and decided that I would pluck up the larger one for myself before he got to it!

So, I had a beautiful beet for dinner tonight. Yum!! I, unlike Squirrel Nutkin, ate every bit of that beet, too. I baked the beet itself in a little casserole dish with a couple tablespoons of water. My vegetable book said to leave 1 inch of stems and the root end and to not peel it before baking, so I didn't. When it came out of the oven the peel rubbed right off and the shoots were really tender and yummy. I also steamed the greens, then ate both the beet and greens with a little pat of butter. Oh, so good! Now, I didn't waste the stems - I ate them raw - they were good, too and reminded me of very thin celery. And then, to top it all off, I poured the baking liquid into a glass and drank that really fast, like a wheatgrass shot. It was not very good at all, but I've convinced myself that what it lacked in taste, it made up for in healthfulness. All in all, I had a beet-y good time!

And, by the way, the reddening tomatoes were fine when I got home and I decided I will leave them where they are for one more day. I'm taking this one day at a time.