people say she’s crazy…

This morning I picked out a pretty fuschia sweater to wear to work. The sweater was purchased at Express circa 2000 to wear over a dress to a family friend’s wedding. I found it in a dry cleaning bag under my bed last night and thought it would be a lovely jewel tone. Indeed, it was.

This evening when I got home from work, I removed the fuschia sweater and put on a t-shirt. This was an exceedingly good idea, as tonight I attacked my beets.

When I first picked up my box from Newleaf Naturals, I thought I had been short changed. I thought I was missing both my cilantro and my beets, but it turns out, they were in the plastic bag, hiding behind the kale (see below). Additionally, they were HUGE. Little did I know, beets can be the size of… I dunno, a very small fist? A medium onion? No idea. Know why I didn’t know that? Because I thought beets were radishes.

I mean, I knew there was a difference. I just didn’t know there was SUCH a difference. Or rather, so MANY differences. Radishes, for one, are white on the inside. They are often eaten raw in salads. Beets, on the other hand, are fuschia throughout. Behold, my boiled, peeled beets:

I am having some trouble with lighting in the ol’ one-butt kitchen, so I hope you can see these. They are dark, happy maroon. But when you touch them, or when they touch anything, your hands (or your anythings) are immediately, semipermanently stained hot pink. So I have no action shots of the beet process, because I like my camera without pink fingerprints.

But what to do with beets, huh? Good old FoodNetwork.com led me to a Dave Lieberman recipe for beet and goat cheese salad with watercress. But what if you’re me, and you get watercress and water chestnuts confused like crazy?

This confusion caused a kink in my plans to whisk in and out of Treasure Island to pick up the ingredients I didn’t already have, but a helpful, friendly neighbor and a less helpful but no less friendly produce weigher pointed me in the right direction and saved me from buying celery root (the recipe said “a bundle of watercress” and I was looking for something that grew in bundles that looked like it could have water chestnuts hiding in a bulby feature. Yeah.). So I got home, put my beets in some water to boil them up…

… and got to work on my SINGLE GIANT YAM, also courtesy of Newleaf:

This baby got peeled, sliced, into semi-uniform fries, slathered in salt, pepper, rosemary and Mazola all natural spray, and tossed in a 400 degree oven on a cookie sheet for about 40 or 45 minutes. I flipped them once following a suggestion from Tubby, and they came out tender and salty and flavorful and rosemary-y. I managed to not eat about 6 or 7 fries to save for lunch tomorrow… yum. Also, in the process I turned portions of my tiny kitchen counter, my fingernails, my socks, my floor, my hand towels, my face and my pajama pants PINK.

So here are the finished products: Beets and goat cheese on a bed of watercress (with lemon and thyme vinaigrette… I got a little zealous with the lemon, so… a little rough, that part) with rosemary sweet tater oven fries on the side!

All that’s left of this week’s Newleaf box now is cilantro, an avocado, carrots and the pears and apples I’ve been working through every day at lunch. Not bad. I guess tomorrow I’ll do something with the avocado (maybe onion-free guac, just for Miss J.) and cilantro, and then I’ll anxiously await Saturday, when my next box comes!