My third CSA share contained a little bit more color than I was used to seeing. I was excited to see the fun, different vegetables in my box–an array of purple and pink mixed with green.
Unlike my previous shares, this one only had things I’d heard of before, but I had not previously cooked or eaten some of them. I thought it would be fun to work with one of the colorful choices.
The colorful things were beets and radishes. Both are vegetables I would never pick up at the grocery store, but I was excited to try something new!
I could not decide which one to prepare, so I chose beets because purple is my favorite color. I chose a basic recipe because I was not sure whether I would actually like them. I have heard mixed reviews from people I know; some like them and some cannot stand them.
Since I also had all this wonderful lettuce in my share I thought the best thing to do would be to cook the beets and mix them into a chicken salad.
Once again, the Internet was my friend: I Googled how to cook beets. First I cut the stems off, then wrapped them in aluminum foil and placed them on a cookie sheet in the oven. I baked them for about 45-50 minutes at 400 degrees.
I put the beet stems in a bag in the fridge to eat as lettuce. A lot of people just throw out the stems of vegetables, but they make for great greens.
After the beets had cooked, I removed them and unwrapped them. I sliced the beets into little, thin circles so they would fit perfectly on a fork. Mixing in the chicken and the lettuce, I had myself a beautiful salad!
This week was great for me because I was able to try things I would never think of purchasing for myself. I never would have thought that I would eat beets, but I really enjoyed them and see myself eating a lot more of them in the future.
This week was a bit simpler than the past few weeks, but I am proud of myself for taking on the daunting challenge of a beet.
Margaret Sheets is the 2016 events intern at Taste the Local Difference® and she is a senior at Albion College. You can contact her at [email protected]