Roasted Beets 'n' Sweets

Roasted Beets 'n' Sweets (from AllRecipes, Total Time: 1 ¼ hours, Servings: 6)

Ingredients

·         3 medium beets, peeled and cut into chunks

·         2 ½ Tbsp. olive oil, divided

·         1 tsp. garlic powder

·         1 tsp. salt

·         1 tsp. ground black pepper

·         1 tsp. sugar

·         2 large sweet potatoes, cut into chunks

·         1 small sweet onion, chopped

Directions

1.       Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2.       In a bowl, toss the beets with ½ Tbsp. olive oil to coat. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet.

3.       Bake beets 15 minutes in preheated oven.

4.       While beets are baking, mix the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and sugar in a large resealable plastic bag. Place the sweet potatoes and onion in the bag. Seal bag, and shake to coat vegetables with the oil mixture.

5.       Mix sweet potato mixture with the beets on the baking sheet. Continue baking 45 minutes, stirring after 20 minutes, until all vegetables are tender.

The original recipe called for 6 beets and 2 medium sweet potatoes, but I used the quantities above because that’s what was in my CSA bag this week.  This dish is pretty easy to make – just remember to wear gloves when you cut the beets or else your hands might turn an interesting red/purple color. 

The vegetables were very tender – soft, but still had just a little bit of bite to them.  That satisfied both my husband and me.  It obviously tasted sweet – I think that the dish could have done without the added sugar.  If you are set on using sugar, I recommend only ½ tsp.  I also found it very “peppery”, I recommend only using ½ tsp. of pepper.  Other than that, it needed no changes.  A sweet way to get some veggies into a meal!

Risotto Primavera

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/dijon-risotto-primavera-56545.aspx

I cannot rightfully call what I made Dijon Risotto Primavera.  Even though I bough Grey Poupon awhile ago, it was nowhere to be found, so I had to make some adjustments to this recipe to enhance the flavor.  I have never made risotto before, so I think I did an OK job for my first time.  This recipe is a good base, next time I’ll make sure that I have Dijon on hand so that I more accurately rate it.

To make this recipe vegetarian, I used 1 box of Trader Joe’s Organic Hearty Vegetable Broth instead of chicken broth.  As noted above, we didn’t have Dijon Mustard, so after cooking the rice, I added about 1.5 T of French’s Yellow Mustard, about 1 T of cracked black pepper, and a dash of salt and…Mrs. Dash (I have never used it before, but my husband suggested it).  Overall, it worked, but I would definitely like to taste it with theDijon.  I thought that making risotto would be difficult because of the time needed to make it work, but this recipe was pretty easy to work with.  Although I was standing by the stove a lot, I had the opportunity to do other things in the kitchen and didn’t have to constantly stir it.  Give it a try…you might just like it!