Beets with a Beat

When you know beets are delicious because you've had them in a salad, but you bought them and they look so horrid that you lose all hope, don't fear! Growing beets is very methodical, and rhythmic, the harvesting and cooking are as well. So keep up with the beat of the beets, and follow my song!

My friend has bee growing beets in her yard because she thought they would be cool and fun to grow. The problem is, after forgetting about them for 6 months in the ground, we've realized that the leaves were tough and inedible, and the beets themselves were small, and hard.  Hard beets? But they were soft and in much larger chunks in the salad I ate! I guess they were cooked? how? Roasted? boiled? baked? fried? :-/  Darn.

I love growing beets because they actually don't need much space. You can grow them on a patio in a pot that is about 5 inches deep. I love the leaves because they are glossy and green often with beautiful red stems. A great decorative outdoor plant!

So first of all, growing beets is quite easy. You seed them in the ground, pushing the seed about an inch into soft ground. Our soil is very much clay soil, so to prepare the ground, we first need to dig it up and mix our clay soil with some potting soil and fertilizer. After planting your seeds and covering them lightly with dirt, sprinkle them lightly with water every 2 days for the next 4 weeks, and then you'll see some plants coming up. If each plant is closer than 2 inches to the next, you'll want to move them carefully to give each beet root room to thrive.

As the plants grow and you continue to water them every 2 days, the leaves will also start to grow.
The growing follows a 2/4 pattern (every 2 days watering, 4 weeks to get seedlings, 2 inches apart, 2 months total for leaves, and 4 months total for beets)
When they are 2-4 inches long, you can cut them, leaving about 1/2 inch of leaves at the base of your beet so the leaves will regrow. After about 3 months, you are ready to harvest your beets. Dig them out of the ground, brush off the dirt, and lovingly carry your new achievements inside. There they'll be gleefully slaughtered and roasted. :-D

Beets can be cooked in a variety of ways. The easiest for me is roasting them in the oven. Hold this for final note for 2 counts (about 2 hours between cleaning and cooking) and you're done with the song of beets!
To prepare your beets, slice off each end of the beet, and scrub the skin with the rough end of a sponge, or a tooth brush you reserve especially for scrubbing vegetables.  Next, move your shining beets to a casserole dish, toss with a little olive oil, and cover with a lid or aluminum foil. Cook them in the oven covered for an hour to hour and a half depending on their size. Beets also go well with a variety of spices and can be roasted with rosemary, garlic, oregano, sage or thyme, or can be roasted with vegetables like sweet peppers, tomatoes, carrots or artichoke.

You can ignore them during roasting, tuning your house with a fine sweet mood like background music,  while you watch a movie, do some exercise, drink some sangria, blow bubbles with the kids, plant more beet seeds in the ground...

Once you're finished, remove your beets from the oven, peel them, slice them or quarter them. Use them for garnish, flavor in salads, a delicious side-dish, or add them to your carrots and make a lovely juice in the juicer.

The songs involving beets, like songs of love, may be endless... Enjoy the music!

Roasted Beets with Olive oil:
Serves 4
Ingredients:

• 4 medium beets, scrubbed, with both top and bottom trimmed off 
• 1 TB olive oil
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Place your beets and olive oil in a casserole with a well-fitting lid.
3. Toss your beets to coat them in oil. Sprinkle lightly with black pepper 
4. Cover tightly with casserole lid or aluminum foil. Place in your preheated oven and bake for 1 hour and a half. 
5. Remove from oven and cut beets as you prefer. 

Nutrition Facts for one medium-size roasted beet
60 total calories, 9gm total carbohydrate, 4gm fiber, 0gm protein, 0.5gm fat
(0.5 Carbohydrate (0 NET carb), 0 Fat, and 0 protein exchanges)

Moroccan Braised Lamb Shanks

When I get the itch to pamper myself, and a sincere itch to cook, I'll do something with lamb.  Its not easy to find fresh lamb meat, usually its frozen, and not often halal. But when an opportunity arises to get good, grass-fed fresh lamb meat, I definitely suggest you do it quickly. Lamb has a slight game-like flavor, similar to goat and deer meat, but it is a few degrees milder, but also lamb that is farm-raised is degrees less gamey than its grass-fed counterpart. I prefer to use lamb over beef in most dishes, including those with ground meat.

I love lamb because it has a heavy, warm flavor, that even after a bite I feel pampered when I need it most. It is rich and delicious.  But be forewarned, lamb is a very fatty type of meat. 

Lamb shanks as they begin to boil with water, browned onions, garlic, and spices. 

With my family's history of a lemon surplus, I even had to preserve a lot of my extra lemons. I adapted a method that I got from the whole foods store, and made my own recipe for preserved lemons here.
Combining my love of lamb with an overabundance of and passion for lemons, I made a beautiful braised lamb shank. This dish involves a lot of time and nursing. You can be passively revisiting your pot every 30 minutes or so, but you should be nearby. After starting my dish, I ran a few errands at the post office, came back to turn my lamb, responded to a couple emails, returned to turn the lamb, cut my vegetables, returned to turn the lamb, etc. If you start at 3pm, you'll have dinner by around 7-7:30. Do this on your days off from work! Otherwise, you'll eat dinner at 10pm and die from exhaustion! I paired the lamb with sauteed fingerling potatoes and my recipe for roasted beets.

This dish pairs well with rice flavored with saffron and turmeric(not pictured) or some pan-fried potatoes seasoned with allspice and roasted beets. 

Hang in there, if you don't like lamb but love lemon, I'll give you other recipes to make with the preserved lemons, like one with chicken & olives, or I'll have more on my post about preserved lemons.

Moroccan Lamb shank with Vegetables and Preserved Lemons
Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 2 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
• 3 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 tsp. sweet paprika
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp saffron threads
• 1 tsp allspice
• 3 lamb shanks
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 Preserved Lemon, thinly sliced
• 2 large carrots, peeled and sliced into coin shape.
• 2 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced into half-circles

Directions:

1. Use a wide, ideally shallow pot for this dish. Lamb shanks are large and they should ideally sit flat on the bottom of the pot. For this dish I use a wok or large, 4"deep pot or skillet that has a lid.
2. Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring constantly, until they become soft and slightly clear, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook about 2 minutes longer until garlic has browned slightly.
3. Stir in the four spices and cook for an additional 2 minutes.
4. Add lamb shanks, arranging in a layer on top of the onions. 
5. Add enough water to cover the lamb about halfway, then season with salt and pepper (alternatively, I use beef or lamb stock with black pepper and leave out the salt for a boost of flavor).
6. Bring to a boil, uncovered over high heat. Reduce heat to low, partially cover the pot, and simmer for 3 hours, turning your shanks about every 30 minutes to keep them moist. 
7. Scatter preserved lemon slices over meat and top with vegetables. Cover pot and cook until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.
8. Arrange meat and vegetables on a large serving platter. Skim and discard fat from sauce, pour a little sauce over meat and vegetables, and serve remaining sauce on the side. 

Nutrition Facts for 1/2 lamb shank and 1c carrots and zucchini:
460 total calories, 7gm total carbohydrate, 5gm fiber, 27gm protein, 16gm fat
(1 Carbohydrate (1 NET carb), 3 Fat, and 4 protein exchanges

Moroccan Preserved Lemons

A wonderful use of a lemon surplus is to preserve them with salt and spices. This is commonly done in Morocco, and lemons are usually preserved until winter time when their use in flavoring food continues when lemon season does not.

Our Orange-X juicer. It has a long arm that crashes down over the lemons. Great if you have bucketfuls of citrus  to squeeze!

First slice the top and bottom off the lemon, then cut a cross into the lemon vertically, being careful to not go completely through the bottom of the lemon. Stuff the cross with rock salt.

This recipe is amazingly easy, the lemons being preserved in just salt and their own juices. The beauty of preserved lemons is their acidity is reduced with preservation, and the lemony flavor is amazingly strong. They also add a bit of salt to cooked food, minimizing your need to add salt in cooking, and preserved lemons can be cooked without becoming bitter (fresh lemons are much more bitter when cooked).

Push your salt-stuffed lemons into a jar, packing them tightly. Don't be afraid if you squeeze out some juice. After each layer of lemons, add a layer of whole spices. When you can no longer add more lemons, add the lemon juice until it completely covers the tops of the lemons. Then add a final layer of rock salt, cover, shake, and store it in a cool, dark place, caring for your lemons as directed in the recipe below.


To use your lemons after they had been preserved, simply wash off the excess salt, and take out the seeds. You can use the lemons in stews, also using the sliced rind in salads or even drinks.

I'll provide you with recipes for chicken, and lamb and salad using these preserved lemons.
So try these, you'll love them!


Moroccan Preserved Lemons
Ingredients:

• 2  1-Quart canning jars with lids
• 1c kosher salt
• 16-18 organic eureka lemons, scrubbed clean
• 2 tsp whole cloves
• 2 tsp black peppercorns
• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 bay leaves
• 1c lemon juice

Directions:

1. To prepare your canning jars, first wash them in hot, soapy water. You may boil them or use a high-temperature dishwasher to ensure their cleanliness. Any time you are preparing jars to preserve things in, you must clean the lids and jars as above. This will make sure there is no bacteria in the jars before they are filled and sealed.
2. Next, add 3 TBSP salt to your jars.
3. First slice off the top and bottom tips of your lemons. 
4. Cut a cross in each lemon, making sure your cuts do not go completely through and the bottom of your lemon is still intact.
5. Stuff the insides of your lemon generously with salt.
6. Place the lemons in the jar, and press each layer down, squeezing juice out of them and packing them tightly. 
7. Sprinkle the spices over each layer of lemons. Once the jar is filled with lemons, add more lemon juice, enough to completely cover the lemons.
8. Add 4 tablespoons more salt to the tops of the jars, seal them well, and shake to mix. (Due to the salt, the tops of most canning jars will rust. To prevent this, I put a thin sheet of paraffin or plastic wrap over the mouth of the jar, then put the lid over this to fully seal.)
9. Store your preserved lemons in a cool, dark place. 
10. Make sure to flip the jars of lemons upside down every 2 days for 1 week. Then continue to store them in the refrigerator until use, also turning every 2 days for 2 more weeks. After 3 weeks of waiting and turning, your lemons are now ready to use!

Roasted Chicken with Olives and Preserved Lemons

Moroccan food oftentimes uses warm spices like cinnamon and paprika to flavor dishes, but sometimes fresh fruits and vegetables are difficult to obtain. In this recipe using olives and preserved lemons, I'll showcase two common ingredients that, when preserved, will be usable even up to 2 years later. This use of preserved foods is perfect on a night when you don't feel like going shopping for ingredients, or just want to slap something together that is inexpensive and healthy. This dish cost me 8 dollars, excluding spices. :-)
So for my dish I first sauteed the onions with salt and pepper for about 10 minutes or until they were beginning to caramelize. Then I added the onions and sauteed them more. The smell of these two pungent friends was so powerful that I had to open the windows and turn on two fans.

The strength and flavor of organic onions and garlic is much stronger than the non-organic ones, and if using organic, you may get by with using less. In my opinion, more of these is always better. Open the windows before starting the cooking process. ;-)

After the garlic and onions are slightly browned and overly-fragrant, add your dry spices and continue to sautee for another minute or so. This fragrance will be even more wonderful. I like to make this dish when having guests for dinner. It provides such a wonderful smell to welcome your guests inside and make their mouths water with delight.
Add chicken stock or broth, add the chicken, and the diced skin of 1/2 of a preserved lemon. This is a great dish to make when not many fresh vegetables and lemons are in-season.

Thinly sliced preserved lemon, from a jar that I found in the back of the cupboard (over a year old, but ohh so delicious!)

Boil these together until the chicken is cooked, then strain the chicken, onion, and lemons out of the broth. Using the remaining broth, boil some diced potatoes for 20 minutes, then strain these and put them beside the chicken. In the remaining broth, boil lemon juice and chopped, pitted green olives until the mixture becomes slightly thickened. To serve, just pour the olive-lemon sauce over the chicken.

To make this meal perfectly balanced, you may place in half the plate a piece of chicken and some potatoes, and fill the remaining half of the plate with vegetables (adding some red tomatoes or orange carrots will surely entice your taste buds with a colorful display). The chicken will be so delicious you may want to go for seconds. Practice self-restraint by eating more vegetables instead. This will ensure your meal is well balanced, and not excessive carbohydrate or protein.

The recipe:

Braised Moroccan Chicken with Olives and Potatoes
Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, halved, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, pressed
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 2 cups low-salt chicken broth
• One 5lb chicken, cut into 8 pieces, skin removed
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• Rind of half of a preserved lemon (recipe for preserved lemons here)
• 1 cup new potatoes (the lower starch ones), chopped into approx 1/2 inch cubes
• 1/2 cup green olives

Directions:

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sprinkle with pepper; sauté until golden brown, about 10 minutes.
2. Add garlic, and sauté for another 3-5 minutes. Add paprika, allspice, cinnamon, and cumin; stir 1 minute. Add broth; bring to boil. Sprinkle chicken with salt and seven spices; add to skillet.
3. Rinse one preserved lemon, discarding the pulp. Dice the lemon rind into fine pieces and add this to the chicken.
4. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, turning occasionally, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer chicken to platter, straining the onions and sprinkling them over the chicken.
5. In remaining broth place your diced potatoes over medium heat. Allow this to return to boiling. Boil for 15 minutes or until potatoes are cooked through. Strain these and plate them alongside your chicken. In the remaining broth, add olives and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Increase heat to high; boil uncovered to thicken slightly, about 5 minutes.
6. Pour over chicken.

Nutrition facts for 1 piece of chicken and 1/2c potatoes:
390 total calories, 15gm total carbohydrate, 1 gm fiber, 19 gm protein, 13gm fat
(1 Carbohydrate (1 NET carb), 2.5 Fat, and 3 protein exchanges)