Marinated Beet Salad with Pistachios and Dill and Pearl Cous Cous with Roasted Cabbage

From CSA member Maya Binyam and Evan

Marinated Beet Salad with Pistachios and Dill (Maya)

For an autumnal meal that gets better as it sits in the fridge, I make marinated beets. After scrubbing and trimming the beets, I wrap them in aluminum foil, and bake them in a 375-degree oven until they’re tender (but haven’t yet turned to mush). Once they’ve cooled off a bit, I remove the skin, and crush them with the flat side of a knife, rip them into irregular bite-sized pieces, and place them in a large, heat-proof glass tupperware. In a small skillet, I fry fennel seeds in a few tablespoons of oil. Once the oil is hot and the seeds are toasted, I pour both over the beets, and mix in a few splashes of aged sherry vinegar, as well as a big pinch of salt. I let the beets sit at room temperature for a few hours, and then either move them to the fridge, or prepare them for a salad. When I’m ready to eat, I mix them with chopped pistachios and dill. If I have citrus around, I’ll sometimes segment an orange or grapefruit and mix that in, too.

Pearl Cous Cous with Roasted Cabbage (Evan)

Cabbage is the best vegetable. It’s crunchy, it’s sweet, it’s big and round. What more could anyone want from a vegetable? In this simple recipe I roast my cabbage until slightly charred, and then finish in a skillet, to eventually serve over pearl cous cous. Slice the whole head cabbage in wedges (usually in eighths, but this can depend on the size of the cabbage) so that it is in chunks, with several leaves attached at a corner point. Dress the cabbage in olive oil, salt, sumac, aleppo pepper, and a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, and roast in the oven at 450 degrees. While the cabbage is roasting, prepare your cous cous. Cook minced onion and garlic in hot oil for a few minutes. Add a cup of cous cous, salt, and sumac, and fry until the cous cous starts to toast a bit. Add 1.5 cups chicken or veggie (or even miso) stock, and cover. Cook until all the liquid is absorbed. In a frying pan melt butter. Once melted add sliced onion and cook. Remove the cabbage from the oven when is it is soft and starting to char around the edges. When the onions begin to caramelize, add the cabbage wedges and all of their liquids. Toss to combine in the pan, and add lemon juice and chopped dill. Serve the cous cous on a platter with the cabbage and onion mixture spread on top. Zest a lemon and sprinkle some dill over the top.

Don’t Be Befuddled By Beets

Member Chris Phillips is here to help with beets as well! Get inspired with the below -

Our fall shares will include beets. Novelist Tom Robbins calls beets “the most intense of vegetables.” Perhaps because many of us don’t eat beets all that often, we don’t have a go-to approach for getting them on the dinner table or in the salad bowl. Beets can be confounding. 

I suggest simply roasting them. The Kitchn has a simple guide to wrapping beets in foil and roasting them. If you’re not afraid of a little beet “blood” (it is almost Halloween after all), you could just thinly slice your beets and toss them in a salad or use them as dippers for hummus.

Don’t throw away the green tops of your beets. You can cook down beet greens as you would kale. I like to eat sauteed beet greens on top of toast with some ricotta. 
I can’t resist leaving you with a bit more of Tom Robbins on beets: “The beet is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon, bearded, buried, all but fossilized . . .” I love that even as we slide past the peak of vegetable season in the northeast, these rubies are waiting for us.

Veselka’s Ukrainian Christmas Borscht

from the New York Times, adapted from the Veselka Cookbook

• 2 pounds beets, trimmed and scrubbed (do not peel)

• 3/4 cup white vinegar

• 1 carrot, peeled and diced

• 1 stalk celery, diced

• 1 small onion, diced

• 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

• 2 bay leaves

• 5 whole allspice berries

• 1 tablespoon sugar, more to taste

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

• Salt

• Mushroom and onion dumplings (optional, see recipe)

• Chopped dill, for garnish.

1. Coarsely chop beets, preferably in a food processor. In a medium pot, combine beets, 4 cups water and vinegar; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until beets are soft, about 45 minutes. Strain and set juice aside. (Beets can be used for another purpose, likesalad.)

2. Meanwhile, in a deep pot, combine carrot, celery, onion, stock, bay leaves and allspice; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 45 minutes. Strain and discard aromatics and vegetables.

3. Combine strained stock and beet juice and simmer 5 minutes. Add sugar, garlic and black pepper. Season to taste with sugar and salt. Serve with dumplings, if desired, and sprinkle with dill.