I shall qualify my love of beets by saying "Only boiled, possibly fried afterward, or in borscht"

Last family dinner I was at I was thrilled there was a huge bowl of beets, but I nearly cried when I realized they'd been baked in some kind of sweet gherkin juice. I have no idea why. No one in my family even likes normal pickled beets, and I've never heard of anything getting baked in gherkin juice. O.o

o_O

I've always been afraid to try borscht because, well... it's made of beets!

I've had pickled beets, which taste a little different from regular beets (but still bad!) In my youth, I used to slice up carrots and toss them into the dill pickle jar when the pickles were gone. Works better than you might think!

Oh I use pickle juice to make salad dressing (mix it with mustard and cooking oil), but only dill. I've never liked sweet pickles, I'm not sure why.

Borscht is lots of other veggies too, even sometimes meat, not just beets. Hard to find a place that sells it, but if you see it available, give it a try. Best with a blob of sour cream on top though.

Hush your mouth. Raw's the only way to go! Ever tried the Red Velvet cake that uses beets? delicious. SO moist!

Red Velvet cake that uses beets?

?!? Horrors!

Is Red Velvet cake common in the U.K.? It seems to be mostly an East Coast/Southern thing in the U.S. Hardly anybody on the West Coast ever makes or refers to it. Target had a box mix for it months ago, and I bought it just for the novelty. Turned out to be chocolaty, despite the scary color. Which then puzzles me as to what you're making, because IIRC, you're allergic to chocolate.

I am, but you can either leave the choc out the normal mix and put beets in or what I did was adapt a carrot cake recipe and swap beetroot for carrots. It worked quite well, though would taste different to a true red velvet cake. On the other hand, I like breathing.

And no, Velvet cake is a purely US thing, but I like to try different food. Esp cakes.

I also have a thing about trying out old recipes, esp war ones or peasant recipes. They're quite cheap, esp since I got the slow cooker and I found my great grandmother's cook book. You should see the cartoon that mark the chapters on this thing. for the poultry section the motto is "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and the gander's come in drunk from the pub while the increasingly annoyed goose has been sitting on the eggs. The chapter ends with her grabbing her best bonnet and storming off leaving a poor confused gander looking at some very confused goslings

I've never actually seen a Red Velvet cake in reality, I saw a picture once online. Beets make it red, that's cool, and seems much more palatable to me than those cakes that have mayonnaise in them. :-P

seems much more palatable to me than those cakes that have mayonnaise in them. :-P

Also yark. Though of heard of them-- I know people do that. Like, in the South, where they deep fry everything and potatoes are a 'vegetable.'

You two are scaring me!

Your entire post scares me! Have you been watching Jamie Oliver?

i should probably qualify my beet answer to mean cold pickled beets, which i looooove. the diesel cafe has a salad with beets on it, and they're very slightly orangey and really good.

I'm surprised anyone even picked "Meh" as a choice in the beet poll, because people tend to love or hate them. But I knew you were on the "Yay" side, since you once mentioned beet recipes (!)

Lunch was beets. I felt very Ocean's 11 --- ALL RED!

o_O

You must really like them!

I added goat cheese. Was nom.

Ha! That's funny-- that's what was in the book, too. Goat cheese, beets, lettuce, and tomatoes, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette. :)

I like borscht -- probably a matter of upbringing, but I regard eating beets in any other form as as akin to eating balls of silly putty. (Sorry). I also detest brussel sprouts. And that's it -- I like every other type of food -- way too much. Food dislikes are very strange.

I thought about brussel sprouts, though I actually like them. Never had them before adulthood (I suspect my Dad hates them), but my husband's family likes them. They're kind of bitter, and I can understand why someone might hate them!

Is borscht seasoned at all, or is it mostly beet stew? The taste of beets is so strong that I can't imagine anything making them fade off.

This is the version I'm most familiar with but my Mom pretty much just got the commercial bottled kind. She wasn't much into cooking.

Ingredients

2 pounds (1 kg) raw beets
A little salt and pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar or to taste
6 peeled boiled potatoes (optional)
1 cup (250 ml) sour cream to pass around
Instructions

Peel the beets and dice them. If they are young that is easy to do. If they are old and too hard to dice, simply cut in half and, when they have softened with boiling, lift them out, cut them up, and put them back in the pan. Put the beets in a pan with 9 cups (2 liters) of water and salt and pepper and simmer for 1-1/2 hours.

Let the soup cool, then chill, covered, in the refrigerator. Add the lemon and sugar to taste before serving (these could be added when the soup is hot, but it is more difficult to determine the intensity of the flavoring). Remove some of the beet pieces with a slotted spoon if it seems like there are too many of them and keep them for a salad.

Serve, if you like, with a boiled potato, putting one in each plate. Pass around the sour cream for all to help themselves.

Thanks! I'm hoping someone haunting the comments down the road will enjoy this-- full detail and everything. :)