My beetroot anything-but-halwa may yet take the place of love in the world

[Bossy Monkey]

So a friend and I went to an Indian buffet a month or so ago and one of the desserts was beetroot halwa. We went nuts over it. However, I gave up dairy a month ago and had the strong impression there was a lot of it in the halwa. I looked it up online when I got home and confirmed the suspicion. So I've been trying to make my own version using substitutes.

The first problem was finding beets. Hardly any supermarket carries them (not counting the nasty canned version), but eventually I found some at a daring Piggly Wiggly. Now you can laugh and point at me. I've been trying to put avocados in everything since I started my comeback from hypothyroidism. One of my less brilliant moves has been trying to cook with avocados, in pasta sauce and other things. They always turned out vile, and it only lately occurred to me that maybe you can't cook avocados. (Everybody: Gee, ya think?) So that's what happened this time, too. Put in avocados, cooked the mixture, it turned out vile. Edible, but not good.

Fast forward to the second attempt. Shredded three big beets (but no Texas radio), put in a pot and covered with purified water. This would be a good time to put in the teaspoon of vanilla (so the alcohol will boil away); I did it later and the alcohol left a bit of an aftertaste. Turn the heat to about 5 and let the water boil away. Takes eons; stir the beets every 20 minutes or so.

When the beets are done, let them cool. (I took this to extremes, putting them in the fridge for a day. Probably wasn't necessary.) Throw the meat (pulp, whatever) from an avocado into a blender with an approximately equal amount of purified water. Mix in with the beets and a tablespoon of olive oil and two tablespoons of honey. Stir like a crazy person, and your parent's sibling is named Robert.

The result is wonderful, if a little bland. I may try two tsp of vanilla next time, or maybe some cinnamon.

[ThomasQED]

1. Beets, avocado, honey and oil?

Sorry, that sounds horrible.


But once you had a recipe, why all the experimentation? Couldn't you just replace the dairy with a nondairy equivalent?

[Bossy Monkey]

3. I'm off soy, too. Nearly all milk equivalents include soy lecithin

though coconut milk might be pretty cool.

[IcyPeas]

2. beetroot cake... and chocolate beetroot cake

Saw this being made on a tv show (I have never tried it) but they say it's similar to carrot cake. You can search for it online - there's plenty of recipes. I saw no dairy. - I love pickled beets. It must make the cake very red. I think you should make it and get back to us. :-)

:hi:

[Bossy Monkey]

4. I'm happy with what I've got already.

Chocolate is out, too, due to almost universal use of soy lecithin (and me quitting soy, as mentioned above). Might be fun to get some baking chocolate and try it with beets... though as I was just trying to replicate beetroot halwa, it would make more sense to get some baking chocolate and do some other fun thing with it.