Beetroot

Beetroot is one of those foods that inspires marmite-like love or hate.  Every year I plant a row of beetroot but I think it tastes like earth.

 

Sometimes I consider not planting it but it is a reliable crop.  It's easy and if you thin it properly you get great big pink beets.  Beetroot thinnings are a favourite of our friend's guinea pigs.

 

The first year I grew it because a friend's son asked me to.  He was sick of me leaving courgettes on their doorstep and thought that he'd rather have beetroot presents instead. Faced with more beetroot than I could give away I had to try and find ways of eating them. (The beetroot not the guinea pigs!)

The long suffering husband has an aversion to beetroot from his days as a Saturday boy in the greengrocers.  It was his job to boil the beetroot and at the end of the day with pink fingers and the smell permantly burnt into his nostrils he vowed never to eat another vegetable again.  This was a resolve he stuck with until I started hiding my home grown veg in otherwise brown dishes.

I made Beetroot soup, thinking a pink soup would be a hit with my pink-loving daughter.  But she took one sip and said, "Eugh, it tastes like mud!"  

 

Then I discovered it was quite nice if you left it raw and grated it into salads but one beetroot would last a family of 4 a whole week.

 

And then I found it was OK if you put it into chocolate cake but yet again it didn't use enough beetroot.

 

So I pickled it.  I have 3 large jars of pickled beetroot.  This is great but as I don't like pickled beetroot either it is just sitting in the cupboard looking pink and pretty.

 

But there is good news.  Sitting at the staff room table at lunchtime, a colleague pulled out her sandwiches and said, "I've had beetroot sandwiches every day this week, they make me so happy!"

I'm sure a few jars of pickled beetroot would make her even happier.  And my family will be ecstatic.