Winter Salad

A meatless main dish salad composed of roasted root vegetables like beets, carrots, and potatoes over tender bok choy, topped with a fried egg.

This vegetarian main dish salad is perfect for the season when your body wants Spring but the view outside the window hasn't quite caught up yet.

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About this time of year, as the days are getting noticeably longer and the time change means I've got more light available in the evenings, I start craving fresh food. I haven't used a winter Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share before, but my Strategic Winter Squash Reserve is proof that much of the Fall harvest can be enjoyed months later if properly stored.

I need more than just long-storing root vegetables, though. I crave leaves! When I am lucky to find a farmer growing winter greens I make good use of their produce. This Winter Salad is a tasty way to enjoy some mild cold weather greens like bok choy or spinach. I first got the idea for raw bok choy in a salad thanks to Alanna's lyrical descriptions of her Bok Choy Salad with Creamy Vinaigrette. Young tender small leaves are best for eating raw in salads. Use the more mature larger plants in Fish Tacos or Yakisoba.

Cocoa Beet Chocolate Chip Muffins (#MuffinMonday)

Shredded beets combined with cocoa powder and chocolate chips in a buttermilk-soaked oatmeal muffin. Farm share beets become a sweet treat!

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This recipe is a fine example of how I put up my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetables during the season to feed my family all year long. I've fixed these muffins for folks to enjoy at the first CSA pick up of the season as well as in the middle of winter for a pink Valentine's day treat.

I'm sharing them now because beets are one of the handful of items still left in my freezer, and because my half bath is painted a vibrant color--although not as vibrant as these beets. The swatch said Sun-kissed Apricot but we've renamed it Nuclear Sun-kissed Apricot. With the light on and the door open in the half bath an orange glow covers the foyer.  It's creepily bright.

We found the mirror at an antique store--it's narrow, like the pedestal sink it sits above.

Lemony Beet and Lentil Salad

A hearty salad of red lentils and beets in a lemon thyme vinaigrette. This vegan recipe is a healthy addition to a summer pot luck because it keeps well at room temperature.

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Salads are staples in our fridge in the summer. It doesn't seem to matter the base of the salad--lettuce, kale, potatoes, or grains--having a salad is a go to alongside grilled vegetables and proteins. Something that can be prepared ahead of time is a great way to round out a meal when you're busy working at the grill on the entree.

This blush colored salad is a colorful cool addition to a picnic. Since the dressing is made of lemon juice and olive oil, it can sit out at room temperature for quite a while safely. For leftovers, I like to mix in a bit of hummus for a quick version of my Layered Summer Appetizer. If you need to bring a salad to a pot luck, something that can hold at room temperature is a great idea for summertime. It provides a change of pace from mayonnaise-based potato salads, a gluten free option from macaroni salads, and a vegan option to bacon-topped tossed salads.

Golden Beet Muffins with Caramel and Chocolate #MuffinMonday

These decadent muffins owe their golden hue to roasted beets. Take them over the top with chocolate chips on the inside and a caramel drizzle. Eating your beets for breakfast never looked so good!

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I'm used to getting scarlet beets in the farm share. For years I've been searching for recipes that will entice my family while using up the beets from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. I've tried sweet and savory preparations with mixed results. One thing that is consistent is that beets + chocolate go well together in a sweet baked good, but sometimes the vibrant color (found in nature--no dyes necessary) is off-putting. Other times, like in my Cocoa Beet Chocolate Chip Muffins, it can really look cool.

When I opened up the farm share box to see a bunch of golden beets I was delighted. Now, maybe I had a chance to remove the shocking pink aspect of the beet dishes from the equation, and just let the earthy-sweet flavor of the beet work its magic.  I roast beets wrapped in foil (scrub them good but don't peel, drizzle with a bit of vegetable oil or water so they steam) in a 400 degree (Fahrenheit) oven for 45 to 90 minutes or until tender when you squeeze the foil packet. After that you simply slip the skin off the cooled beets and you're ready to use them however you like. Roasted beets will keep in the fridge for several days and can be frozen for several months, though when you thaw them I hope you don't want lovely slices as the plant cell walls will have burst during the freezing and they'd rather be smashed into puree.

Roasted Beet Appetizer with Gorgonzola and Pickled Red Onions

A vibrant vegetarian way to start a meal, this recipe combines tender roasted beet cubes with tangy pickled onions and gorgonzola cheese. Add a bit of pistachio for crunch and your meal is off to a memorable start!

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I'm trying a new tactic to encourage my family to eat the beets from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share--small plates. I'm sure it's old hat to many folks, but it's a new idea for me. I mixed up a batch of this roasted beet appetizer and, instead of having folks help themselves like I usually do, I put a couple of tablespoons each into a few of my Polish pottery ramekins. These are the perfect size for a snack of trail mix of cheez its [though if you're having the Extra Toasty kind those things are like CRACK and you'll actually burn some calories jumping up off the couch to refill your little dish every few minutes].  If you've got little dishes that hold about 4 ounces (half a cup), and less adventurous eaters--give this method a try.

When I get beets in the farm share, I quickly perform Vegetable Triage on them. I cut off the greens first, if they are present. I constantly crave Sautéed Beet Greens and make that for breakfast/brunch whenever I have access to beet greens. Once the greens are removed, the beets can hang out in the crisper drawer for at least a week. This is a Good Thing when you're overwhelmed with life and aren't really prioritizing using up the fresh produce. If you've got space, you can even freeze roasted beets for several months. They come out very soft, so freeze them whole and handle gently if you'd like them to retain a cube shape. If you do plan to mash them, say, to make Cocoa Beet Chocolate Chip Muffins, then you'll be just fine with freezing/thawing roasted beets.

Red Pork and Cabbage with Beets

A one skillet meal of sautéed red vegetables--beets, cabbage, and radishes--with a bit of pork for protein. I nicknamed this low carb grain free meal Red Power Dish.

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It's interesting how my consumption of the news has changed. I remember when I was a kid Sunday morning was for piling up on my folks' bed and reading the paper. Primarily I read the Sunday comic section and accompanying magazine. I don't think I paid any attention to the daily paper the rest of the week, unless I had a project for school.

Chocolate Cherry Beet Brownies

These fudgy brownies are topped with dried cherries and white chocolate chips, stuffed with beets, and a divinely sweet way to enjoy beets from the farm share.

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My son had a school project--to make a recipe utilizing a vegetable, document it, and write it up for submission.  Sounds like a blog post, no? Especially fitting for a blog that provides ideas and inspiration for feeding family-friendly recipes using seasonal ingredients from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, the farmer's market, and the garden.


I had plenty of beets from the farm share (and had not discovered this amazing Beet, Orange and Cranberry Smoothie) so I asked him to find a recipe using beets.  He found this Fudgy Dark Chocolate Beet Brownies recipe from Pinch and Swirl. I gave my thumbs up and then sat back and filmed him for his project. Leaving my kid to figure it out on his own (to be clear, the instructions in the recipe were excellent and my son followed them easily) helps create independence in the kitchen. This in turn creates independence in life, which is what I want in a kid I'm raising. I wanted to make these brownies a wee bit seasonally festive, so I had him add a topping of dried cherries and white chocolate chips before baking.


I originally was going to share this recipe for #ChristmasWeek but got distracted with My Scottish Grandma's Shortbread and decided that they'd be an excellent Valentine's day treat. Perhaps as the finish for a kid-made meal of Baked Ravioli Valentines? Just a suggestion. I'm all about the suggestions here.

Want more suggestions for beets? Try my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This is a resource for folks like me trying to feed them family from the farm share without getting bogged down in the same old same old. Want more recipe ideas? I've got 'em on my Pinterest boards. I'm sharing them on my FB page. I'm finding them on Instagram. Want to know How to Use this Blog?

Orange & Beet Smoothie with Cranberries and Maple Syrup

This is a vegan smoothie that combines seasonal citrus, beets, and cranberries with a generous splash of maple syrup to make it go down smooth nice and easy. Overwhelmed with cookies? Haven't started the wrapping yet? Whip up one of these babies and power through your to do list without plowing through the cookie tray.

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To be honest I really wasn't feeling a post for today. I'm still a bit worn out from doubling my workload and sharing 6 recipes in a row for #ChristmasWeek. [As an aside, the Amazon Gift Card Giveaway is happening for another week or so, have you entered? I'd sure like to have a connection to the winner. Go to this post for all the details.] However, seeing that it is citrus season (we got our Band Fundraiser Citrus a week ago) and as this recipe kept me going all through last week's craziness, I'm going to share it as is--I ran out of light last night so I'll update the photos as soon as I've made today's smoothie. I promised myself I'd take time off closer to Christmas, so you'll get one more week of recipes before my break.


Did you think, after Spiked Hot Cocoa Gift Mix, Maple Doodles, My Scottish Grandma's Shortbread, Cranberry Chai Tea Cookies, No Bake Magic Cookie Truffles, and Fresh Cranberry Mini Scones that this blog is all about sweets? Ha! Fooled ya. It's all about beets.


If the only things I got in my farm share were a steady supply of potatoes, onions, carrots and lettuce I probably would not have started a blog about how to feed my family from the farm share. I mean, everyone knows what to do with potatoes, onions, carrots and lettuce. [If you don't, feel free to consult my Potato Recipes Collection, my Recipes Using Onions, my Carrot Recipes Collection, and my Greens (Lettuce/Salad) Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, the thing I am most proud of on this blog--a way to help my readers figure out what the heck to do with those veggies in the share that are new and unusual to them. And to me!]

A small farm can't make it on just a few crops--diversification is where it's at these days. [You may notice a change to my ads--I've switched from a few Adsense ads on the sidebars to a plethora of ads managed by MediaVine. Not a clue what, if anything, I am earning as I haven't made time to go check out my dashboard, but the experience has been very positive for me so far. Let me know how it is for you. Back to farms.] Farmers need to grow crops that will be ripening throughout the season so that us hungry folks have something to eat. And often, that means new-to-us foods.

Beet, Pickled Herring, and Potato Salad

Roasted beets and blue potatoes from the farm share, mixed with pickled herring chunks and red onion in a potato salad perhaps only a Scandinavian would love.

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My family Christmas Eve tradition is a Scandinavian style smorgasbord reflecting our Norwegian and Swedish heritage with Danish and Finnish influences and the occasional Icelandic cheese. It is not an official competition, but you get bonus points for all the various ways you can serve herring at your table. [None of the ways involve dessert, ease your mind.]

When I got blue potatoes in the last Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share of the year, I thought it would be fun to add another herring dish to the spread by making a beet & potato salad with pickled herring. I already know beets and pickled herring go well together from my Quick Pickled Beet and Herring Salad. I've enjoyed a shockingly pink sildesalat which combines smoked herring, potatoes and beets. So this combination is not a stretch--if you're used to the above--which is why I thought it appropriate to serve at my family celebration last year. With so many herring lovers around the table alongside me, my spouse and kids were in the minority and the salad was seen as a normal addition, not something far out.

A Beet, Blue Cheese and Cherries Appetizer

Roasted beets, apple cider-soaked dried cherries, creamy blue cheese and crunchy pecans. This beet appetizer is hearty enough to stave off hunger and intriguing enough to satisfy curious appetites.

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I don't have enough beet appetizers in my life. You probably don't, either. You may think you've got plenty, but I'm going to try and change your mind.

You know about the Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Board, right? It's my place to gather all the vegetable-centric [though not all vegetarian or vegan] starters I come across on the web. There are several beet recipes scattered amongst the hundreds of pins. [I am still figuring out this whole Pinterest thing, so it's rare that you'd find a repeat on that board--keep scrolling down for more ideas.]

I've also got 60 beet recipes from generous food bloggers in my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. This index is for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share or farmer's market. The kind of folks who have a pile of fresh beets in the crisper 2 weeks after the last farm share delivery. The kind of folks who always have roasted beets in the freezer. The kind of folks who encourage their kids to use beets in their next school project [and then take photos of the results for a future blog post].

In my defense, the project was to prepare a dish using a vegetable, so it's not like he needed to build a molecule with toothpicks and marshmallows and I wanted him to substitute beets for the . . . . toothpicks [you thought I was going to say marshmallows].

Chocolate Beet Crinkle Cookies #Choctoberfest

We are all just stardust on a tiny speck in an unimaginable multiverse. The following chocolate beet crinkle cookie is pretty pointless if you consider it in light of the reality, but I'm sharing it anyway. That's what happens when you come home from a wonderful talk by Neil DeGrasse Tyson knowing that you're going to be putting up a cookie recipe later. Like a food blog is important in the grand scheme of life. Might as well eat a cookie. NDT gives an excellent show if you're able to go.

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THIS IMAGE IS FROM NASA'S CASSINI MISSION. I ADDED THE ARROW. YOU'RE LOOKING AT AN ECLIPSE WITH THE SUN BEHIND SATURN. WE'RE A LITTLE SPECK NEAR THE ARROW.

Roasted beets in a tender and chocolatey crinkle cookie.

Now that I'm settling into a routine of posting dessert recipes (a very brief routine), I felt it would be prudent to reveal more of my veggie-loving self and bring some beets to the party.  It's our 4th date, I think it's about time. After all, the purpose of my blog is to provide practical support for local eating and where I've eaten locally that means beets. Lots and lots of beets.

I'm still waiting to find the recipe that makes me crave the beets I get in my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share (found it!) so I enlisted the help of my fellow food bloggers for recipe ideas. I've got 59 recipes in my Beet Recipes Collection. This recipe will make an even 60! That collection is part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, and random beets that show up in the mail.

The first time I made this recipe I was using beets sent to me without obligation from Melissa's Produce. They are shown in the ingredient photo below, roasted and ready-to-go in a clever shrink-wrapped package. After I got a vacuum sealer for Christmas, I duplicated their idea since I frequently have beets lolliping around in the crisper looking for something to do.

If you've got beets, roast them drizzled with a bit of olive or cooking oil and wrapped in foil at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for as long as it takes to make them 'give' when you squeeze them. It ranges anywhere from 20 minutes to 80 minutes for me, depending on the size of the beet.

How to Make My Family's Favorite CSA Vegetable Spaghetti Sauce

Practical advice for how to save ripe summer farm share vegetables--by roasting--for use in a kid-friendly spaghetti sauce all year long.

The purpose and timing of this post reflects my mission for this blog: to provide practical support for local eating. We chose to get a large Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share not because I'm a masochist and like to torture myself with overwhelming quantities of vegetables for the kids and I to eat while my spouse is deployed because it's a good value and I know if I put up the produce properly, I'll be feeding my family from the farm share all year long. With a couple of tried-and-true techniques, including #4 from this post, and a substantial Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient filled with ideas for what's in the box, my goal is to help you feed your people from your farm share as well.

Let's talk fantasy versus reality, especially as it pertains to spaghetti sauce. In a fantasy world, I'd start with ingredients like this and spend a leisurely day chopping and simmering in my spotless kitchen [this is my fantasy, after all]. Tomatoes would always be ripening in m weed-free back yard [no need to watch where you step either], basil would be fresh for the plucking, and I'd have an interesting assortment of eggplant, peppers, fennel and squash to make flavorful sauce. [Oh, and plenty of freezer space while we're talking fantasies].

In reality, this is what the start of my spaghetti sauce often looks like. It's a bit beetier, no? I grab a bag of vegetables and a piece of Parm rind out of the freezer, a jar of tomatoes out of the pantry, and 30 minutes later I've got sauce. Homemade sauce in a half an hour is possible only because I did some prep work in the late summer, as in right about this time of year. Typically I roast my vegetable surplus and freeze it in bags as shown, but this year I'll be throwing the farm share on the grill.
When I have more propane.

Funny, how propane is a necessary ingredient when you have a gas grill. Sunday night I came back from sled hockey camp [my son plays, I'm a hockey mom] planning to Grill All The Things in the crispers. I'd forgotten I was almost out of propane when I made pizza last. I turned on the oven instead. Using my previous little grill, a tank lasted almost 2 years. Now it lasts about 4 months. Just like you need lids and jars when you're ready to get canning, or a fresh roll of bags when you're freezing produce (Amazon affiliate link), you need propane to grill. If you have a gas grill, that is. Lesson learned.

Oatmeal Orange Beet Blender Muffins

These perky morning muffins have roasted beets from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, oatmeal, and orange juice. They are easily made in the blender for a smooth batter, bright flavor, and golden hue.

We were only engaged for a week, so we didn't undertake any type of pre-marital counseling. Instead we drove from Michigan to New Mexico, seeing the sights en route but probably not avoiding chain restaurants--see this post if you want tips on Local Eating on the Road--since we'd just been living in Germany and were craving all things American. We got hitched once we arrived in Alamogordo.

Why the rush? Well, if you're someone in the military who loves someone else in the military there's this thing called a Join Spouse assignment preference. There's no Join Boyfriend or Join Fiancee or Join Significant Other assignment category. You need the paper to make it officially easier to be with the one you love. It made more sense to my spouse and I to get the paper rather than have a big To Do. So we did.

Had we undergone pre-marital counseling, however, I would hope that it included the orange juice pulp issue. There are too many choices in the grocery store and the amount of pulp and/or calcium in your OJ is just one example. My spouse likes Lots of Pulp. I'd rather have pulp than not have pulp, so I'll easily go along with his desire.

For other recipes using beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I've been working behind the scenes adding links to recipes from a host of creative and generous bloggers to make this index a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share. For another muffin recipe using beets, how about a sweet Cherry Beet Yogurt muffin or a savory Beet Horseradish muffin?

Pink Pickled Banana Peppers for Sandwiches

This is a fun little sandwich topping to whip up if you've got a beet and a handful of banana peppers.

If you are a gardener, hope is your best ally. And soil amendments. Hope and good dirt.

Between the vagaries of weather and varmints, you really need to be made of strong stuff--and have a lot of hope--to want to plant year after year. The first year? Optimism is available in spades. After that? It takes some doing.

After asking for 'all the vegetables' on my order at sub shops, I realized I love the zing of pickled banana peppers on my sandwiches. Since I got over my fear of making pickles I realized how damn easy it is to put up a jar or two. Produce + vinegar + water + garlic + time = pickles. I figured I could grow a few banana pepper plants and put up my own pickles.

The first year I planted one plant and harvested maybe 6-8 peppers over the course of 6 weeks. You can see how I used one here in my Layered Summer Vegetable Appetizer.

The second year I planted two plants. One fell into the swamp a varmint knocked one tiny plant over soon after planting [part of the reason I don't start my own seeds--I have less emotional investment in a plant if it fails soon after planting]. The survivor managed to produce probably a dozen or so peppers over the course of the summer. Once I even had enough ripe simultaneously, when combined with a pint of peppers from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, to put up a pint of pickled peppers. Woot.

This year, I planted 3 plants.  My hope has paid off. In spades. 

On a whim right before vacation, or rather born from the desperation of needing to empty the garden and fridge before a long trip where we ate locally while on the road, I whipped up a batch of quick refrigerator pickles using a leftover kohlrabi and a bunch of banana peppers that wouldn't last in the garden for 2 weeks. I had one beet left from the farm share and decided to peel and slice it and add to the jars. The result is so fun! Pink pickled peppers. I can see these diced on top of a deviled egg or egg salad, in grilled cheese, on pizza, or in sandwiches. Plenty of sandwiches--how pretty is that?

Beet Hummus--and an improved Beet Recipes Collection of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient

Steamed beets + chick peas and tahini make a tasty, pretty, pale pink hummus.

I'm still waiting to find the beet recipe that I will adore. The beet recipe that is the last way I'll ever want to prepare beets. The beet recipe that makes me look forward to beets in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box with antici . . . [say it] . . . pation.

I've found that recipe for beet greens. I love them for breakfast or brunch, prepared this way. I could happily eat beet greens like this for the rest of my life. My family doesn't share the beet greens love, so I keep sharing new beet greens recipes on the blog.

In my summer project to transform my little blog Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient into a resource for folks eating from the farm share, I reached out to other bloggers for their beet and beet greens recipes. I'm delighted to show off the fruits of our combined labors [their recipes and my recall of my ABCs] in this post. I've got over 50 recipes to date and more coming!

The beets I used to make this hummus did not come from my farm share. During the window of time between the last Fall share delivery and the first pick up of the 2015 season, the generous folks from Melissa's Produce sent me a lovely cookbook and some packages of steamed beets. If you don't have access to fresh farm share beets, this product would be a good substitute. The beets are small enough to pickle or use as a side dish, and peeled/cooked ready to use. I used mine in hummus, and other I was not required to write nor compensated for this post [other than the beets + the cookbook].

As you can tell from the start of this post, I still haven't found the beet recipe. But this one ain't half bad. It's cute with carrot slices for dipping, it's pretty used as a spread inside wraps, and it tastes great with pretzel thins. Adding chick peas and tahini tones down the vibrant color to a pleasing pink.

Why yes, a kohlrabi leaf does provide a pop of color to your appetizer spread.

For more recipe suggestions to help you find YOUR BEET RECIPE, please see my newly-expanded Beet Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient. I'm sharing additional vegetable appetizers on my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks Pinterest board and on my FB page. Need help using this blog? Click here.