The gardening season is slowly coming to an end on some vegetables. The frost levelled out all of my zuchinni plants (I was smiling on that one), disappointed about the squashes and the basil (it can’t handle the cold at all). The tomatoes survived because I covered them and am now waiting for the warm weather we are going to get and they can ripen!
In the next month we will be digging up potatoes, carrots and beets and putting them into winter storage. An excellent book to buy is The Complete Root Cellar Book-Building Plans, Uses and 100 Recipes by Steve Maxwell (Manitoulin Island) and Jennifer MacKenzie (available at The Expositor office). Everything is covered on how to build a root cellar to storing your vegetables and some excellent recipes on how to cook them. Here is one of them.
Sweet and Tangy Beet and Carrot Salad We have been eating this salad as a side dish with our meat and potatoes. You can also serve it on top of a plate of mixed greens. It tastes the best at room temperature. I cooked the beets two different ways. First, I roasted them in a pan covered in the oven (peel left on) and then tried peeling them when they were cool enough to handle. I gave up and just grated them with the peel on. The other way I cut the top and bottom off the beets and threw them in water and cooked them until tender. I let them cool and the skins slipped off as easy as can be. 1/4 cup cider vinegar 1 Tbsp liquid honey or maple syrup 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper 1/3 cup olive oil 4 beets, cooked, cooled and peeled 4 carrots (uncooked) scrubbed clean 1 Tbsp chopped fresh mint 3 leaves of kale or Swiss chard, stems removed
- In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, honey, mustard, salt and pepper. Set aside
- Grate the beets, and the carrots and place in a large bowl.
- Chop the kale into very small pieces and add to the beets and carrots.
- Pour the dressing over top of the beet mixture and mix well. Taste and then add more vinegar, honey salt or pepper. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes before serving or refrigerate to use the next day.
