Making borscht tonight. What do you do with beet greens?

[eridani]

Last edited Fri Dec 19, 2014, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Maybe treat them like spinach? I'll ahve to check the Vitamin K content first.

[Warpy]

1. They take longer to cook than spinach

but garlic, hot pepper, and olive oil do well with them.

Slice the garlic and put that, olive oil, and a whole dried small chile or two into a cold pan, then turn low heat on. When the garlic is toasted but before it gets toasted dark and turns nasty, fish it and the peppers out and discard them. Put in the washed beet greens and a little water, cover tightly, and cook on lowest heat for 3-5 minutes. You end up with sweet, garlicky greens with just a note of heat from the infused olive oil.

ETA: Beet greens have less Vitamin K than spinach. If you regularly eat spinach, then your meds are adjusted for that.

[eridani]

2. Sounds good. I'll eat them not mixrd with other veggies, and give DH a smaller portion. n/t

[Luminous Animal]

3. I love borscht! Beet greens do take longer than spinach and you can cook the stalks, too.

Both are delicious.

Both the stalks and greens can have gritty residue so rinse them well.

Remove the green from the stalk.

Roughly chop or rip greens into 2x2 pieces.

Chop the stalk into 1/2 x 1/2 inch pieces (longer/shorter based on he width of the stalk - it gets thinner as you go up - what your looking for is relatively uniform volume)

Chop some onion. About 1/3 of onion to beet stalk.

Mince or press some garlic to your taste in the above proportions.

Saute the onions in olive oil with a sprinkling of salt until translucent. Add stalks and garlic with more salt and now pepper. Cover and let the leaves release their moisture. When they bite to the texture of fresh spinach, take the cover off and sauté vigorously until the moisture is near gone.

My favorite things to add are red wine or balsamic vinegar and smoked paprika (see below).

: Variations!

Tomato paste added to the sautéed onions.
Smoked paprika (or any paprika but I like smoked the best) when sautéing the onions.
Red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar.
Chick peas or black beans
Caraway seeds
Pepper flakes or hot pepper sauce.

[Retrograde]

4. treat them like Swiss Chard

beets and chard are cultivars of the same plant. The beet leaves do run a little, though, if they're from red beets.

[bif]

5. Saute them with garlic

in olive oil. Then serve with pasta, topped with toasted pine nuts and parmesan.

[eridani]

6. I'm going to do this, with some bacon for a carbonara effect

And some steamed carrots for DH, though he can probably have a little of the greens.