colorful beet salad

some new friends came over for dinner recently and i wanted to make something really special. the caveat was that it also had to be easy, and quickly assembled after a day of work- often a time when you're not the sharpest (i'm usually prone to dropping things). in addition to pork tenderloin and a super-impressive-but-surprisingly-easy mushroom tart, there was still a salad left to concoct. i remember reading somewhere about a beet salad and thought it would be a earthly, bright alternative to the boring (but lovable!) green salad. since there were both golden and red beets available, i picked up some of each and also a couple black radishes. after adding a bunch of parsley and generous douse of homemade shallot-mustard vinaigrette, it was done. i can safely say it was a winner in both the taste and looks departments- i noticed that even an avowed vegetable hater (you know who you are...) cleaned his plate of it. on the other hand, he didn't put very much on in the first place…!

funnily enough, as much as i love beets now, i had not really had a beet (unless you count a canned one- but i don't count canned vegetables because they rarely resemble fresh ones- asparagus is a good case in point-yeeeck) until my sophomore year of college when i was invited to the birthday party of a friend who worked at the union square greenmarket. for those that don't know, the union square greenmarket is one of the largest farmers markets in the united states; bringing fresh, local, often unique produce right to the heart of the city. since gabrielle worked at the market, she got first pick of produce, but more often, would receive gifts from farmers of some of their best crops. at her birthday she had a little platter of roasted baby beets sprinkled with sea salt. they looked so pretty just sitting there with their festive red coats and glittery salt, tall leafy stems providing a perfect handle- even though i had no idea what i was getting into, i just couldn't resist. in the same way that oysters taste of the sea, i feel like beets taste of the earth- sweet, dark and pungent. and the red ones have that staining color that is like an public initiation: look- she ate at beet. i did. and i'm happy to eat many, many more.


colorful beet salad

3 medium red beets
3 medium golden beets
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley
1 black radish (you can also use a couple of the regular small red ones)

for vinaigrette;
olive oil
1 shallot
strong dijon mustard (i use this one)
red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

mince shallot finely. heat up 1/4 cup oil in a small saucepan over low heat. add shallot. heat for approx. 5 mins, stirring. remove from heat and let cool.
when cool, add 1 1/2 tablespoons of mustard and whisk until emulsified. stream in 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar and add salt and pepper to taste. you can tinker with the proportions of each of these ingredients to suit your palate, but remember that most vinaigrettes have a ration of 3:1 or 2:1 oil and vinegar.

roast beets:
scrub beets of all loose dirt. toss whole beets in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. place on foil wrapped baking sheet and cover with another sheet of foil to seal. roast in a 425F oven for 50-60 mins, or until a skewer comes out easily.
let cool slightly, and place individually in a paper bag. (those large ones you get at the grocery store are great) shake the beet around in the bag until the skins come off- repeat for each beet. (a great workout!) cut and separate the red from the golden until the last minute- i stored them in two separate bowls in the fridge.

when the time comes to assemble the salad, roughly chop about half the bunch of parsley. combine beets, add parsley, shave some of the radish on top and toss with the vinaigrette. it is great at room temperature and even better cold, straight out of the fridge.

bergen in the kitchen

i guess this should really be titled "bergen in the colander". honestly, if things were right with the world it would be illegal to keep the cuteness of this picture from the hungry masses of the internets. and because i'm doing my part to make this a better place, i'm sharing this picture with you. i *still* can't believe that is MY kitten in MY kitchen. an embarrassment of riches, really.

lunch bags

as mentioned earlier, i'm a bit of a nut when it comes to budgeting, so i bring most of my lunches from home (also there are no good places to eat around wall street). usually this just means i stuff a tupperware in a tote bag or purse, but sometimes i'll use a good ol' brown paper bag. however, in trying to be a good steward of the environment this year (i'm staying away from paper towels and only using sponges!) i'd like to try and make one of these oilcloth lunch bags. i'll keep you updated when i'm done.

oilcloth lunch bag tutorial at (who else?) martha stewart.com

spritzers

my favorite drink to order at bars is a shirley temple. i don't usually drink alcohol and a shirley temple is a festive alternative to water, which i occasionally ask for as well. however, it is getting annoying to always be looked at little funny whenever i order one- as if the only legitimate reason i'd want one was for my kid. hey, it's not my fault the most popular mixed non-alcoholic drink was named after a child star! i'm always so grateful when bars have a menu of non-alcoholic drinks as well; i feel like mixed juices are so underrated.

at home, i'm always experimenting with different combinations. i guess these are technically called "mocktails", but i hate that word. and anyway, these are not a mockery of anything; in fact, they are often more delicious and unique than regular cocktails. let's agree then, to just call them spritzers, which evokes a kind of country-club languor that we could all use a little more of.

spritzers

my standard: concord grape juice and lemon-lime seltzer

holiday: pomegranate juice and lime seltzer, garnished with a twist of lime

summer: pureed cantaloupe, muddled mint and soda water

morning: pulpy, fresh-squeezed orange juice with a dash of pomegranate juice

exotic: lychee syrup with pellegrino, garnished with a candied ginger slice

lemonades: you can use homemade, or doctor store-bought
--muddled (mint and strawberries)
--with mango nectar
--with passion fruit nectar

if you have time: you can make your own grenadine, so that you can have your shirley temples right at home!

(the picture above is from a restaurant in tivoli, ny. i had a blueberry mint lemonade and grace had a watermelon lime punch)

pear budget

when i started this blog i envisioned it to be primarily about food; the places i ate out at and the things i made, plus the recipes that excite me. sort of like a cross between the girl who ate everything, smitten kitchen, and design sponge(but for food). but, as i'm thinking of blog posts, i realize that i have other things i want to share about besides food. and other than the occasional "things to do", i mostly want to share about money.

money is not a topic that most people outside of the profession of finance want to talk about, and it is not something that a twenty-something liberal arts major non-profiteer usually wants to talk about either. but, BUT- (and here's the super secret) it is one of the most important tools you will ever have in your life, and the sooner you figure out how to use it and make it work for you, the easier everything else will be. i am only saying this because i was the last person on earth to take up the "suze orman" cause- until i realized the ramifications it could and WOULD have on my life. at some point i'm sure i'll share my story from bumbling checkbook balancer to super anal budgeter, but that's not for now.

so, i'll be sharing personal finance tips from time to time. take what works for you and don't worry about the rest.

here's #1:

easy budgeting

budgeting is such a dirty word to some people- it evokes denying yourself things you really want. i've heard it be compared to dieting over and over again. i guess it is a little like dieting, in that it can be crazy "grapefruit and cottage cheese" strict, or it can be "changing the way you think about food" flexible. i'm of the second opinion.

budgeting helps you change the way you think about money.

think about it: before budgeting, you didn't know how much money you had in your bank account, you didn't know how much you were going to need for the month, and inevitably there were times when you got that little slip from the ATM and went "huh? why is my balance so low/high?"

once you begin to budget, things start to make a lot more sense. before i started seriously budgeting, i was always wondering where all my money went- i don't buy clothes, i don't drink, i'm not a book/music junkie. but, as this blog is a testament, i love to eat. i didn't realize exactly how much that was costing me and when i did- oh wow. wow. i had to seriously re-think the way i eat out/cook.

you're in luck. the old school (and cheap) style of budgeting required you to be pretty savvy in excel (luckily something i do in my day job). or you could go the more expensive route and buy quicken or MS money. however, i just recently found a great web-based tool that has become my new budgeting partner: PearBudget .

think of it as budgeting 2.0- a free service (while it is still in beta, at least) where you can upload all your receipts and compare them to your budget. for the first few months, when you still don't really understand where your money goes, your preliminary budget will be way off, but as you continue to track all your expenses, you'll start to see patterns. budgeting is not like dieting in this way- you can't know what to spend your money on without first knowing where you spend your money, while in dieting someone can just tell you what you should eat. you're going to first need to track all your expenses. i teach a personal finance class and i always tell people to keep a little plastic bag in their purse/coat pocket (winter is the best time to try this out!) and stuff all their receipts into it- then, at the end of the week, you can enter it all into PearBudget. it is amazing what you find out about yourself- i already knew i ate a lot, but this really confirmed it!

roasted

due to the park slope food co-op, i'm in the lucky position to always have fresh, cheap, organic vegetables at my disposal. i've had to be adventurous and creative in order to take full advantage of this abundance, coming up with recipes like asparagus lasagna, or putting radishes in every salad. (thanks to emily's mom and hope for the inspirations!)

sometimes though, i'm just lazy, and whenever that happens i have a fool-proof method for putting something delicious, homey and attractive on the table. at first, i thought it was too boring to share, or too simple- but that's the best kind of recipe, right?

roasted squash and cherry tomatoes

heat oven to 425F.
cut 3 small yellow squash into halves, cross wise and then cut each half into approx. 8 matchsticks. cut 1 pint of cherry tomatoes across the middle.

toss both in large bowl with 3 tablespoons good quality extra virgin olive oil, about 5-7 grinds of black pepper and 1-2 teaspoons salt (i like my food salty!). i also use about 3-4 sprigs of fresh thyme leaves- i think it makes all the difference.

lay out on a foil covered baking sheet, arranging vegetables in one layer.

roast for 30-40 minutes, just until the tomatoes begin to burst.

williamsburg, not brooklyn

there are two williamsburgs’ in my life; brooklyn and virginia. williamsburg brooklyn was the first one- i would go to shows out in williamsburg while in college and eat at kellog's diner right outside the lorimer stop off the L train on the way home. until i graduated from college, i had never been to williamsburg, brooklyn during daylight hours, believe it or not. now, i go to williamsburg for brunch occasionally, and sometimes still see shows or eat pierogies there. i don't go that often though, because it is a little intense for me and there are not enough trees.

while williamsburg, brooklyn is fine, it is williamsburg, virginia that really stole my heart. having never been as a middle school student, my first trip was as an adult, which afforded me a totally different perspective. i can see how as a child it would seem a little boring- all this history surreptitiously wrapped up in funny clothes, clomping horses, and lots and lots of dusty streets. however, as an adult (especially one from one of the newer states, california) i am fascinated by its quaint charm and the way that you can truly imagine how it must have felt like to be around at the birth of our country. grace laughs at my misplaced nostalgia, but since she grew up here she is allowed to take it for granted.

one of the best things in williamsburg, virginia, and the real clincher in my book, is something i also would have loved as a child: real barnyard sheep. they roam around in little enclosed pastures on the back streets and if you're walking around during dusk when there aren't many people around, the light will be just right for imagining all sorts of things.

while in williamsburg over christmas, grace and i took one of these walks and ending up spending quite a bit of time with the sheep. we found out they love magnolia leaves and we probably did some damage to the nearby tree attempting to strip it of leaves for them. they obviously didn't NEED more food, but it was adorable to watch them munching and besides, that was the only time they were distracted enough to allow us to lean over the fence and bury our hands in the soft, white, wool.