Beating beet apprehension

Lame confession time: I've never prepared any part of a beet, ever. In my life. I've definitely eaten my share of beets (pickled, roasted, or otherwise), but I've always been intimidated by this weird-looking vegetable.

Now, I can say with certainty, I have vanquished these feelings far, far away, and I will prepare and devour all beets I receive in my CSA, worry-free. I followed the sage advice of my big yellow cooking bible and baked the beets in foil so as not to make a mess. They're in the fridge now, cooling off for tomorrow night's chilled beet salad.

Tonight, I decided to tackle the greens. I had never eaten beet greens before, so I was unsure of how they'd even taste. A quick read of the CSA newsletter informed me that they were a bitter green, good for sauteing with butter and garlic, so I decided to take their advice and keep it simple.

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Simple Sauteed Beet Greens



1 bunch of beet greens (cut the beets off, leaving about an inch of stem attached, then cut from stem to greens)
2 pats of butter
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
sea salt & fresh pepper to taste

The first thing to know about the beet greens in your CSA box is that they tend to be sandy and gritty as heck. Rinse them VERY well before even approaching a cutting board, or you'll end up putting your clean greens on a sandy cutting board like I did. Easy enough to fix (flip the cutting board and re-wash your greens), but false starts in the kitchen are irritating.

Set aside your roughly-chopped greens and get to work on your garlic cloves. For this type of dish I prefer roughly chopped garlic, but if you're not a fan feel free to finely chop or mince.

Melt the butter in a sautee pan over medium heat; once it's mostly melted, add the garlic and crushed red pepper. Let the garlic and pepper bask in the butter for a minute or two, so that the butter will be imbued with their delicious flavor.

Add the beet greens to the pan and sautee for about three minutes, stirring regularly. Add the lemon juice and continue to sautee the greens for another few minutes, until any stems in the pan have softened to the point of being edible.

Toss on a dash of sea salt, bust out the pepper grinder, and enjoy.