No Dye Red Velvet Cake? Can it be true?

I get my CSA box on Thursday. Really a perfect day to get it. Yes, I know that I seem to have a love/hate thing going on with my box…

This weeks box had some really beautiful looking beets in it. One of them was huge, about the size of my youngest daughters head! It also came with my weekly newsletter. For their newsletter they always feature 2 recipes, come ingredients and a bit of farm news. One of the recipes caught my eye. It was for a Chocolate Beet Cake and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to make it.

See how moist and delicious it looks? Ummm, nope (see after recipe)!

Chocolate Beet Cake (from About.com)

Ingredients:

• 3 large beets
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups mini chocolate chips

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray.
2. Trim stems off beets, and wash off dirt. Drizzle olive oil over beets. Wrap loosely in foil and place on a sturdy baking sheet. Roast 45-55 minutes, until tender when pierced with a fork.
3. Remove from oven and let beets cool 10-15 minutes. Peel and cut into chunks.
4. Place beet chunks and applesauce in a food processor, fitted with a metal blade. Pulse until smooth.
5. Beat sugar, oil and eggs together in a large mixing bowl. Add cocoa powder and beet mixture. Mix well.
6. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually mix into batter until no clumps of flour show. Do not over mix.
7. Stir in half of the chocolate chips. Pour into prepared pan.
8. Bake 40 minutes. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake another 2-10 minutes until cake is done. (I skipped this as the cake was domed and the chips would have been everywhere so I just sprinkled it with powdered sugar!)

Results: I am so, so very sad. I just did not like this cake! It didn't have the beautiful color that I thought it would have once cooked. Before it was baked the color of it was just gorgeous. A beautiful, deep, rich red but once it was baked it looks like chocolate cake.

I also think that the flavor of it is a little “irony” or “earthy”. That may have been my fault. The recipe does not have a measurement for the beet and apple sauce mixture and that could add up to a big fail right there. The beets I had were very large. I even removed some of the chunks but I guess not enough. I probably had about 2 cups of pureed beets. I expected something like carrot cake or zucchini cake and this was too strong for me.

I am very picky though…my girlfriend Shellie liked it, as did the girls. I think if I used less beet puree it would be perfect but I still would not have the color I was looking for.

Would icing instead of the chocolate chips or powdered sugar help? I don’t think so. I may just save the icing for another really good banana cake!

Will I make this again? I am not sure. Roasting the beets and pureeing them is a pain in the butt and took a while. I was also disappointed by the color so maybe not but I would love to get the flavor right so you never can tell! It will not be my go to cake for sure!

Maybe we should just try these…Double Dark Chocolate Beet Muffins by Pinch My Salt

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Thyme and Rosemary Roasted Beets

Oven roasted beets with Rosemary and Thyme. See the pinkish tinge that white beets have picked up from the red?

I love Beets. I love them raw, pickled, boiled but I especially love them oven roasted! I first used this recipe last year when I was getting huge, beautiful beets from the farmers market.

I had some white and red beets in my fridge so I thought I would roast them up together. Not sure if the white ones taste any different or not but they certainly did look pretty altogether.

This recipe is from Jenn The Leftover Queen. She made hers into a salad using the tops and all. By the time I got around to roasting these the tops were happily in my composter doing it's thing in there!

Oven Roasted Beets (The Leftover Queen)

INGREDIENTS:

8 fresh beets
2 TBS olive oil
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
salt & pepper to taste

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 425 F. Wash and trim beets, leaving their skins on. Wash and reserve beet greens.

Line a cookie sheet with tin foil. Place beets on cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary, thyme, salt & pepper. Shake cookie sheet so that beets get coated with oil and spices. Place in the preheated oven and roast for 45 minutes or until beets are fork tender.

Take beets out of the oven and peel skins off. Note: If you care about your nails, which some people do, wear gloves, or you will have red dye under your nails for days afterwards. Do not run under water as it will wash away a lot of flavor. Cut into quarters. Drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper. Toss and set aside.

As Alway...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

A walk through my yard.

My first lettuce harvest!

I took you for a short walk through my yard a couple of weeks ago but so much has changed. The temperature here has risen and we no longer even have much cooling at night. The lowest it has gotten in the last week was 65 degrees. Not very cool at all. Next week looks like it is even higher with a low temp of 70! That is still cool compared to our July, August and September temps.

Needless to say my little container garden is struggling already. I have completely lost my cilantro. I am going to try to get some to grow inside. Hopefully I will get better results. My basil is still doing alright and my tomatoes are starting to ripen. I got my first taste of a tomato and some lettuce from there last night and it was incredible!!!

This is the second tomato to have ripened. They taste so amazing!
Lettuce in desperate need of thinning

My basil is still going strong but the cilantro is done.

My avocado tree has lost all of its fruit but for 3. The tree is pretty young yet so I am happy to have 3 on it. My mango tree has gone nuts. It must have about a 100 starts on it. Hopefully I will be able to get 1 or 2 off of it this year.

3 is better than none!!!

Crazy mango tree. In the next couple of weeks it will drop most of this fruit and only grow what the tree can support!

Onto some food. I have been trying to make beet chips for several weeks now and have yet to find the best method. I use my mandolin to slice them nice and thin. Coat them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme. Place them on a parchment lined sheet pan, pop them into a hot 400 degree oven. I cook them until they start to curl about 20 minutes. Turn them over and keep cooking them. This is where I am running into trouble. Some of there edges burn before the center is cooked. What am I doing wrong? Should I use a lower temp? Thinner slices? Any ideas???

I love my Mandolin!

Beautiful, bright beets!

Any ideas or tips would be appreciated!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

No way could I get a picture!

Yes I've been at it again! I found the best Farmer's Market ever. All the food is certified Organic (Worden Farms) and the market is held every Wednesday! It doesn't get much better than this...well yes I guess it does. The guy on the shrimp boat right around the corner who was selling last nights catch right from his boat even beat that! I brought my bounty home. Cooked up the beets for dinner and left the shrimp for T. to cook and behead! Now just to let you know, my family loves fresh shrimp. That shrimp was sauteed in fresh garlic and butter until just cooked. Put on the plates and eaten up so quick that I didn't stand a chance at getting a picture! But it sure looked good!

I cooked up the beets using the oven roasted beet recipe that I used the other day and they were delicious again! I saved the greens to cook up tonight with one super large fresh salad! This is the best time of year to be eating locally that's for sure!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Oven Roasted Beets

I was so excited to get my big box of produce yesterday and couldn't wait to get cooking! Unfortunately with as busy as we are I had to wait until this afternoon. Tonight was a karate night so I made the beets this afternoon and figured I would just heat them later. A couple of days ago I was looking at another blog The Left-Over Queen and Jenn had made a roasted beet salad. I so wanted to try it! But due to a cold snap last week the tops of the beets were a little messed up so I decided just to skip that part and just roast them following her directions. I ended up serving them at room temperature as a side to the pot roast that we were having. I can honestly tell you that these were the best beets that I have ever had! I don't know if it was the roasting in olive oil or the freshness of the beets but they were delicious. I was actually sad that I had only bought one bunch...guess I have an excuse to go back now!

Oven Roasted Beets (from Jenn the Left-Over Queen - Roasted Beet and Beet Greens salad)

4 fresh beets
1 Tbs Olive Oil
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425 F. Wash and trim beets, leaving their skins on.

Line a cookie sheet with tin foil. Place beets on cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary, thyme, salt & pepper. Shake cookie sheet so that beets get coated with oil and spices. Place in the preheated oven and roast for 45 minutes or until beets are fork tender.

Take beets out of the oven and peel skins off. Note: If you care about your nails, which some people do, wear gloves, or you will have red dye under your nails for days afterwards. Do not run under water as it will wash away a lot of flavor.

Cut into quarters. Drizzle with good extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt & pepper.

We left these at room temperature and ended up serving them this way and they were absolutely amazing! I think the balsamic made this as well so don't skip this part!

Thanks for another great one Jenn!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com