Starters: Roasted Beets with Blue Cheese, Hazelnuts, and Sour Cream Dressing

Poor beets. They are much maligned, that despised vegetable of childhood. So much abuse leveled at them: they’re old people food, they taste like dirt, they’re spongy, they’re just boring.

I won’t defend canned beets. In my opinion canned beets deserve the criticism they receive. But fresh beets are quite different. It’s like in high school when you meet your archenemy’s older sibling and discover that, while your archenemy is a jerk, his or her sibling is actually a nice person and you get along really well with them. It makes you wonder if they have the same parents, or if one of them was adopted.

I spent years avoiding beets. I breezed past them on salad bars without a second look. They were those jerky canned beets. No way. Then one evening, at a very nice restaurant, I met cubed roasted golden beets. They were actually a garnish on something or other, and I decided to try them.

I have a theory about food. If there’s something I think I don’t like, or haven’t had an opportunity to taste (let’s be honest: often people say, “I don’t like X,” when what they mean is, “I’ve never had X,” or, “I had X that someone made at a party once and it tasted bad,” or, “I’m not sure how to prepare X, so I never have”), I make a point of trying it at a really good restaurant. My thinking is that if a good restaurant can’t make a disliked or feared ingredient taste good, we’re probably just not meant to be. This method has served me well. I ate cream of mushroom soup and developed an appreciation for mushrooms, and tried oysters on the half shell and came to see how good they can be, among other things.

So here I was, in a quite nice restaurant, with roasted cubed yellow beets before me. They were a world away from those nasty canned beets of my childhood (which were served, I recall, with instant mashed potatoes, and a hamburger patty with American cheese on it—no bun, just a patty with cheese. All of which could possibly—although not completely—account for my aversion to beets). So I tasted these and was immediately smitten.

I started experimenting with fresh beets, and found a new friend. I like them roasted with just a little olive oil, and then cubed, and possibly sautéed in a touch more oil, seasoned with salt and pepper.

But one day, I started musing. This is something else I do. I muse. An ingredient will pop into my head—beets, polenta, halibut—and I’ll start turning over things to do with it. I’ll start running through other ingredients that might go with the one. It’s almost like a slot machine—the potential pairing ingredients will roll past (not quite as quickly as a slot machine, of course) and then all of a sudden, it’ll be a *chunk*chunk*chunk* and a combination will present itself. Sometimes I’ll keep one and discard the other two and start the process over. Sometimes all three or four will strike me as a winner. Then I start experimenting.

This is how this beet concoction came to be. I suppose it’s technically a salad. Something in my head said, “Roasted beets. Blue cheese. Hazelnuts. Sour cream. Dijon mustard. White wine vinegar.” So I tried it. I roasted and cubed the beets, combined sour cream, Dijon mustard and white wine vinegar, scattered the cubed beets with the cheese and the nuts, drizzled over the dressing, and was completely won over.

I took this to work for lunch and heated up the beets in the microwave (not ideal, but cooking facilities at my office are somewhat limited, obviously). I made it at home and reheated the beets in a pan on the stove with the merest splash of olive oil to keep them from sticking to the pan, and they were a delight.

I think one of the reasons people think beets taste like dirt is that they sometimes do. My grocery store sells only organically grown beets. More often than not, they’re caked in mud (and can someone please explain to me why America equates, “organic” with, “filthy”? It seems to me that all organic produce I encounter in grocery stores is encrusted with vast quantities of dirt. I don’t get this.) As a result, if you don’t scrub beets really well—and I mean really well—they will taste like dirt, because they’ll be lightly dusted with soil. To use a term coined by one of my six year olds, roasted soil is undelicious. Ew.

So scrub your beets really well. You can use any color beet you like—plain old magenta ones, golden ones, or the striped ones called Chioggia. The blue cheese I use is a moderately priced “Amish” blue cheese. This is strange, since I live thousands of miles from the nearest Amish person, but even if they’re imposters, they make decent blue cheese. You want a firm blue cheese that crumbles—Maytag blue is the texture you’re looking for, and it’s available most places. The hazelnuts are just hazelnuts. Buy them in the bulk section already skinned and chopped, and save yourself the chore of roasting, skinning, and chopping them.

As for the dressing, thin the sour cream to a drizzling consistency with white wine vinegar. You don’t want it too bitey, just enough to mellow the sour cream so it’s not too rich. The Dijon adds an extra dimension of flavor. If you’re serving this to guests, you can make everything up ahead of time—beets, dressing, cheese and nuts—but keep them separate until you serve. If you use regular beets (as opposed to golden beets), the dressing will turn pink, which is fine if you’re scraping up the last of it with your fork, but not so nice if the plate is just being set down in front of you.

I’m providing quantities, but you can also use your appetite, guests, menu, and palate as a guide. If you’re having this as a starter before a heavy winter meal, you might want to go lighter on the cheese and nuts, so everyone doesn’t fill up. If you’re using this in a transitional menu (a winter/spring one in which you’re serving something a little more delicate than a big stew or a braise, for instance) you could be a little more generous with the toppings to make sure no one goes home hungry. The same goes for the dressing—taste and see what you think. Too tart? More sour cream. Not assertive enough? A little more vinegar and perhaps another teaspoon of Dijon.

If your only experience with beets has been with canned ones, be assured that when you taste fresh beets, there will be hardly any resemblance. You’ll wonder if they even have the same parents as those jerky canned ones.

Roasted Beets with Blue Cheese, Hazelnuts and Sour Cream Dressing
Serves 4-6 as a starter

Salad

4 medium beets (about 1 pound, greens removed)
Olive oil
2 ounces crumbly blue cheese, crumbled
¼ cup chopped hazelnuts
Baby arugula or baby spinach for serving (optional)

Dressing
4 tablespoons sour cream
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2-3 teaspoons white wine vinegar

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Scrub beets very well with a brush, and dry with a towel.

2) In a small pan (you can even use an ovenproof skillet) pour a little olive oil. Add the beets, and roll them around to coat with the oil. Pour over a little more oil, if necessary to coat completely.

3) Cover the pan with aluminum foil and roast for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of your beets. (A note about beet size and roasting times, the variation of the former of which will greatly influence the latter: My beets, generally, are about the size of an average woman’s fist. Four beets of this size is about a pound. However, you may sometimes find ones that are smaller. In this case, you’ll want to roast them a shorter time. A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to stick a fork into them, but it should resist a little. If it just slides in the way it would into a baked potato, they’re overdone. Start checking big ones at 30 minutes, smaller ones at 15).

4) Allow the beets to cool until they can just be handled, then rub the skin off with a piece of paper towel. If you let them cool too far, and the skins resist rubbing off, just get out your vegetable peeler and peel them. Beets have skin like carrots—very thin and easily scraped
off.

5) Cut off the root and top ends of the beets and cut into ¼-1/2” cubes. Set aside

6) For the dressing, in a small bowl, combine the sour cream and Dijon mustard. Stir to combine. Add in the white wine vinegar, a little salt and a little pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Set aside.

7) If you decide to do the beets well ahead, you’ll need to reheat them. To do this, heat a teaspoon or so of olive oil in a medium skillet, and add the beets. Allow the beets to just heat through, tossing from time to time to keep them from sticking.

8) To serve, you can put down a small bed of baby arugula or baby spinach, if desired. On each plate, mound up some beets, and season lightly with a little salt and pepper (just a pinch of each per plate). Scatter with blue cheese and hazelnuts, and drizzle with a tablespoon or so of dressing.

9) Serve immediately.

Appetizers: Puff Pastry Bacon Spirals

N.B. I wrote this over the weekend. I am no longer quite this cranky. But boy was I ever when I wrote this.

I want to apologize because I’m kind of cranky today. I really don’t know why. I don’t have anything to be cranky about, when you come right down to it. And it almost feels wrong to be cranky over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I mean, I know people are—their families drive them crazy and they get grouchy. I’m lucky because I genuinely like my family. They’re people I’d want to be friends with, even if I wasn’t related to them. And I live close enough to all my family that we don’t have to go and stay with them to celebrate with them. We can eat and go home to our own space and our own beds and so on.

And today is my birthday. You might think that’s what’s making me crabby—another year older and all that—but honestly that’s not it. I kind of like birthdays and I don’t get grumpy about getting old or anything like that.

We’re decorating for Christmas, which I always really like too. Getting all the lights up, taking out all the fun things we bought on clearance last year (I mean, really—I bought one of those Charlie Brown trees, the sad little stick with the five needles and a single red ball to put on it—last year for a buck, and now I’m seeing them in stores again for twelve and fifteen dollars; it’s just crazy).

I think one thing that’s contributing to my cranky is that I cut my finger a week or so ago, and now I have this massive bandage on it. I was slicing leeks, and while I had my fingers in the correct curled under position when I was cutting most of the way along, I got to that last quarter inch and changed my grip, and nearly cut off the tip of my left middle finger. I’ll spare you the graphic description, but suffice to say there were sutures involved and it wasn’t pretty. So with this massive bandage, it takes me three times longer to do much of anything, and I’m supposed to be making another Thanksgiving dinner again tomorrow night so we have leftovers for next week. On Thanksgiving day, we had 18 people, so had very little left over (well, not the stuff I wanted left over—stuffing and gravy, and besides, I want to make my stuffing, which I love but which consists primarily of a bag of Pepperidge Farm and some cooked bulk sausage).

So I’m kind of just accepting my cranky. But I think that’s putting me in a worse mood. Being in a bad mood is putting me in a worse mood. How’s that for logic?

So I decided to share a recipe for something that, if I had it, would make me feel better. Puff pastry bacon spirals.These are great party food. You can make them up ahead and cook them off just before you need to serve them, although they also are pretty decent at room temperature. They’re not supposed to be particularly pretty, so kids can help with the assembly. And they’re bacon. How can you go wrong?

I’m not usually much of a one for “during” shots, but I’m including two for this recipe because I wanted to make sure you got a feel for how done “halfway” is for the bacon, and to illustrate the “twist.” If you cook the bacon too done in the first step, you’ll have a hard time twisting it in the second step. If it’s not done enough, it won’t get nicely crisp.

Bacon Spirals

Ingredients

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and cut into ¼” strips (about 36 strips, about 3” long—if your pastry comes folded in thirds, you can cut each third into 12 or so strips; I use Pepperidge Farm brand)

1 pound bacon, each strip cut in half the short way (don’t use the really thick cut artisan bacon for this—you really want the thinner cut because it’s easier to twist; you probably won’t use the whole pound but how many pieces are in a package will depend on the brand and the thickness of the slices; I use Smithfield brand)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil or parchment, lay out the bacon slices. Bake for about 7-10 minutes, or until partially cooked (see picture).

Cooked about halfway--a bit of browning around the edge, and the fat starting to render, but still flabby and pliable.

Remove bacon from the oven and allow to cool slightly, until it can be handled, about 10 minutes.

Twist together one slice of bacon with one strip of the puff pastry. Pinch the ends together to keep them from untwisting. You’re sort of wrapping the pastry around the bacon. As you twist, you can pull the pastry out slightly to make it longer, if necessary, to get it around the whole piece of bacon. (See picture.) Place each spiral on a rimmed baking sheet lined with foil or parchment (you might want to use a new liner, and not just return them to the pan the bacon cooked on the first time, because the residual bacon fat from baking off the bacon half way may make them too greasy).

See? Not very pretty or tidy.

Return the pan to the oven, and cook 18-22 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and golden, and the bacon is cooked through. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Appetizers: Rosemary Honey Hazelnut Crackers

My local grocery stores used to carry crackers that were specifically flavored to go with certain types of cheeses. At this point the only one I can recall is that the celery-flavored crackers went with blue cheese. The amazing thing was, they really did complement the cheeses they were supposed to accompany. Often in the food world, you hear about things that are supposed to go together, and really, it's just a vile combination. The one that springs most readily to mind is chocolate and red wine. I'm not sure if this is the chocolate lobby, or the red wine growers association, or an evil alliance between the two, but it needs to stop because red wine with chocolate is just gross.

So like many good things in life these crackers seem to have vanished (and it's always the good things, with Exhibit A being Stouffer's vegetarian lasagna, and Exhibit B being Stouffer's broccoli in cheese sauce you could boil in the bag--clearly Stouffer's has let me down over the years, although in this case the crackers were not, to the best of my knowledge, made by Stouffer's). But something got me started thinking about those crackers, and I know crackers are a cinch to make, so why not make my own? And then I started thinking even more (your suspicions are confirmed--I admit I spend about 45 minutes out of any given hour thinking about food and food-related topics), and realized what fun I could have with cracker flavors. So I started with one that was inspired by another cracker I saw at the grocery store: rosemary raisin pecan. I swapped out the raisins and used honey for sweetness instead, and went with hazelnuts instead of pecans, because I like hazelnuts better than pecans.

I let my husband have one, and was accused of being "subtle." This rather surprised me, because I'm almost never accused of subtlety. He didn't think the flavors were super assertive, but that's the point. They're not supposed to clobber you over the head. And I think if you taste them carefully, you can in fact taste every flavor. However, if you want them stronger, add more rosemary, honey, and hazelnuts (keeping in mind that they're not intended to be a particularly sweet cracker in my execution, and if you add much more honey, you may need to add more flour--I haven't tested this).

On a technical note, it's best to try to cut all these crackers the same size, so they cook evenly. They may be a bit on the soft side when they come out of the oven, but they'll crisp up as they sit. And don't worry about appearances--they're intended to look rustic. Rustic, of course, is what we say when we mean "homemade and unprofessional." Rustic just sounds more deliberate.

Next I'm thinking of trying something like a Thai flavored cracker, with red curry paste, peanuts (or maybe peanut butter?) coconut milk and possibly curry or ginger or maybe even lemongrass. I also think if the basic dough were made with basil that they'd be an excellent thing to serve with tomato soup. I have a long list of things to try. I might even try to recreate the ones that went so well with blue cheese.

Rosemary Honey Hazelnut Crackers

Ingredients

1 cup + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon chopped rosemary

2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts

2 tablespoons honey

Summary

• In a food processor, combine flour, salt and rosemary, and pulse to combine
• Add nuts and butter cut in 8 pieces and pulse 5-6 times
• Add honey and pulse, then add water and pulse again
• If dough is sticky, add 1-2 tablespoons of the additional 2 tablespoons of flour
• Roll out 1/4" thick on a lightly floured board
• Cut and bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned

Detailed Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In the workbowl of a food processor, combine 1 cup of flour, salt and the chopped rosemary. Pulse a couple of times to combine.

Cut the butter into 8 pieces and add it, along with the nuts, to the flour mixture. Pulse a few times to combine.

Add the honey, and then the water, and pulse a few more times to make a dough. Feel the dough, and if it feels quite sticky, add an additional tablespoon of flour, pulse, and check again. You may need the second tablespoon of flour as well. If so, add it and pulse a few times to combine.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board or counter. Roll out with a rolling pin to 1/4" thickness. Using a knife or a cutter, cut to desired shape. I make little rectangles, but you could certainly stamp out circles or something decorative. You can't overwork this dough, so don't worry about that. You can reroll the scraps as often as you want.

Transfer the cut out dough to a cookie sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove to a rack and allow to cool slightly. You can serve them warm, or let them cool completely and put them in a tin to keep at room temperature. They keep well for several days, and if they're a bit soft when they're warm, they'll crisp up quite a bit over time.

Makes about 2 dozen crackers, depending on what shape you cut them.

Appetizers: "Mascarpone" Torta

"Mascarpone" Torta

½ lb butter at room temperature
½ lb cream cheese at room temperature
2-3 tablespoons prepared pesto
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
French bread slices, to serve

Summary

• Process cream cheese and butter in a food processor until smooth
• Spread half of cream cheese mixture into a mold lined with damp cheesecloth
• Spread pesto over cream cheese mixture, scatter with walnuts
• Spread remaining cream cheese mixture over pesto and walnuts
• Chill to set, unmold, serve with bread, toasts or crackers

Detailed Instructions
In the work bowl of a food processor or stand mixer (or in a regular bowl with a handheld mixer), combine the butter and cream cheese. Whir it around until they’re completely combined and quite soft. In the food processor the mixture will appear almost liquid as it flows around. That’s fine—you’re going to chill it back up in a few minutes.

Dampen and wring out a square of cheesecloth large enough to fit in your cake pan and fold over the top of the cheese. Drape the cloth over the pan and push it in a bit. Spoon about half of the cream cheese mixture into the pan and smooth it out. Carefully spread the pesto over the cheese. You want a nice layer of pesto, but it shouldn’t be thick. Just enough that each bite contains enough that the flavor comes through, and it’s obvious that it’s pesto. You want to leave as little border as possible—you don’t really want the pesto to show, but neither do you want the first few servings around the edge to be nothing but cream cheese mixture. Scatter the pesto with the chopped walnuts. Spoon the remaining cream cheese mixture over the pesto and walnut layer. This is where it gets a bit tricky, trying to smooth the cheese without disturbing the filling. Remember that what is the top right now will be the bottom, so any flubs won’t show when it’s turned out.

Fold the extra cheesecloth up over the top, press down gently, and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

When ready to unmold, unfold cheesecloth and position a platter over the cheese. Flip the platter and pan over and lift off the pan. If it should resist at all, tug gently on the edges of the cheesecloth to loosen the cheese from the bottom of the pan. Remove the cheesecloth. You can serve it at once, or let it sit at room temperature for a half hour or so to soften up.

Slice French bread into rounds for spreading. Toast in a 350 degree oven until lightly crisped, if desired. I often just leave the bread plain. You can also serve this with water crackers.

Thoughts
Originally this was to be a, "What do you DO with all that basil?!" post, a suggestion to make pesto, and then this recipe. And that may still be your problem if you live in most of the United States, but if you live where I live, you're wondering not what to do with all that basil. No, you're wondering if you're ever going to have any basil at all ever pretty much as long as you live. Then you sigh. Then you go buy a tub of pesto to make this recipe. Which, to be fair, is pretty great, no matter what the weather.

This was something we used to make when I worked in catering. It serves a large number of people for a very low cost per person, and it can be made in a huge batch, so it’s not labor intensive. The hardest thing to do is slice (and toast, if desired) the bread. A food processor (or mixer) does all the work for the torta. It’s molded in a cake pan, so you can get fun with the shapes if you like. We used to make this in a heart shaped pan for weddings and decorate the platter with flowers. I have also used just a plain 9” round cake pan. I cut the usual recipe in half because it makes a simply enormous amount when you use the proportions we used in catering. It’s really enough for 30 or 40 people. This reduced version I made in 6” loaf pan and it was perfect for the 15-18 people I was entertaining. To serve the larger number, just double the butter and cream cheese, and increase the pesto and walnuts to get the same even coverage (you'll just about double them as well).

The name of this recipe is in quotes because there’s actually no mascarpone in it. Perhaps at one time it was all mascarpone (if you're not familiar with it, it's a soft cheese that’s sort of half way between ricotta and cream cheese, often found in tiramisu), but by the time this recipe made its way to me, it was completely devoid of it. Just as well—it’s a little pricey to use in this volume. If you have recently won the lottery, or inherited a substantial fortune, you might try using all mascarpone, but if you’re like the rest of us peasants, the (relatively) inexpensive ingredients here will work just fine.

Dippy

I'm completely torn about this "recipe." I put it in quotes because it's almost more assembly than cooking. On the one hand, it's the kind of uncooking that American society has been criticized for embracing. On the other hand, it's so darned good.

The story behind it is evidently as plebeian as the recipe itself. Long ago a small pamphlet of sorts was compiled of the favorite recipes from the coaches of the Seattle Seahawks, and was sold as a promotional item at a local drugstore chain. The aunt of a friend of mine included the little book in my friend's stocking one year. The coach who supplied the recipe wasn't even the head coach; he was the line coach or something like that. The recipe caught my friend's eye, and she made it. To her surprise, it was good and everyone (especially her then-young children) loved it. So she made it again. And again. And people asked for the recipe, and she gave it to them. So by now just about every person in the Pacific Northwest either has the recipe, or has tasted the result.

I made it myself for Southwest/Mexican-themed gathering, which I was actually unable to attend. A friend of mine delivered it for me. I had tasted it as I was making it, and practically took a spoon to it, and that was before it was even cooked (don't worry--this recipe could very easily be eaten at room temperature). My friend assured me that everyone there reacted similarly.

And so, despite a list of rather low-rent ingredients, and no picture, I provide you herewith a dip recipe that is universally loved. I'm a little sheepish about this, but trust me, it's delicious. Make it for the Super Bowl, if you're a fan of that sort of thing (I confess I am not).

Bean Dip
Another nice thing about this dip is that you can buy an 8" square foil pan at the grocery store, make it in that, and not have to worry about it.
from the random Seattle Seahawks coaches pamphlet from long ago
Make 1 8" square pan

1 can bean dip (such as Frito Lay; sold near the corn chips in the grocery store)
1 8 oz package cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 packet taco seasoning
1 cup (or more) shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine bean dip, cream cheese, sour cream, and taco seasoning in a large bowl. Transfer to an 8" square pan and top with cheese. Bake until cheese is melted and bubbly, but not browning, about 30-40 minutes. Serve with some form of corn chip (Tostitos, Fritos, baked tortillas--your choice).

You see? But it's ridiculously good.