I used to eat beets. A lot. Mostly they were pureed, sometimes mixed with apples and carrots. I’d make a real mess out of them, that’s for sure! But when we got some beets from my friend Walter’s farm, Mama decided to try something that the whole family could enjoy. Yet, she wanted something fast, and if you know anything about beets, you know that they take time to prepare. There’s boiling them until soft, and there’s roasting them until soft. So what to do?

Grate ’em! If given her druthers, Mama would rather use a mandoline than a box grater any day, and it was probably because of this attitude that she knicked her thumb knuckle on it. So let me warn you now: be careful! Anyway, grating the beets (after peeling them) turned them into small enough pieces that could be cooked in a skillet…to which she added butter, the grated beets, the zest and juice of 1 lime, then some salt and pepper. Aside from the afore-mentioned grated knuckle, it was an easy dish to fix and tasted quite yummy. The tart lime contrasted with the sweet beets, and the slight creaminess of the butter played off the tiny bit of saltiness. And we all had pink pee!

Mama paired these beets with organic, whole-wheat farfalle pasta (that’s the kind shaped like bow-ties, but if you really want to know why they’re called farfalle, it’s because that’s the Italian word for “butterflies”), dressed in the leftover kale pesto that she brought back to life with a bit of the pasta cooking liquid. Papa grilled a simple salt-and-pepper pork chop to share with me, and dinner was done!

I wish I could say I ate more than my requisite one bite of pasta and chop…but I was feeling pretty beet after the long day I’d had picking blueberries and making muffins (stay tuned).

Love, Jude