Beets: They're What's for Dinner!

But not tonight. My fecund little garden has been growing the biggest beet ever and every day I have gone out and said a little prayer asking God to put a little plastic bubble around that beet to protect it from the groundhog/squirrel/bunny. And every day that beet grew bigger and bigger. You see, I had plans for that beet: Michele's homecoming. I wanted her to see it growing in the ground and then pick it with me and then we'd cook it up and eat it together! And I know that you all think that next I will say that the groundhog/squirrel/bunny got to it first. . .but no! We just picked it today and cooked it up! bwahahahaha!! We got one over on the groundhog/squirrel/bunny!! The thing is, it took too long to cook, so we actually had grilled cheese sandwiches with slices of tomatoes inside & homemade pickles on the side. Yum!! We'll have beets tomorrow.

Now you all may remember when I was just an abecedarian and first tried beet juice, straight, no chaser. Well, now that I am more advanced, more educated, I've decided to add a little sugar, chill it, and have it over ice. I'll let you know how it is tomorrow. Michele refuses to even try the beet greens, least more the juice. She claims she's living vicariously through me.

By the way #1: You may have noticed that I used two words of the day in this post. Well, that is to appease my sister who complained that since I did not blog yesterday, she was bereft and uneducated about the word of the day. So the first word was yesterday's. Enjoy!

By the way #2: If you are interested in a small purse-sized tote bag, I am having a sale at my shop: The Perfect Little Tote Bag Sale!! There are only two left, so if that's up your alley, grab them while the grabbing's good!

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.