Countdown to Thanksgiving: Unabandoning the beet

Beets. I've been fighting with them for the entire growing season. I fell in love with beet greens in one of my first CSA boxes, those have been flying out of my fridge and into a skillet with garlic and an egg within a day or two of arrival in my apartment. But the roots at the bottom? Those dark red orbs? I just couldn't find a way to like them...and I tried a lot of things...


Borscht
Roasted for use on salads
Sauteed with onions
Mixed into dip
Raw on salads


All of them rejects until I decided to bake with my beets. There were lots of recipes for chocolate beet cakes, but mixed reviews as to whether or not one could taste beets in the cake. So I nixed that before I even got out of the gate. I needed a trial run on some other baked good before I was willing to risk ruining perfectly good chocolate.


So I made bread. In the spirit of zucchini, pumpkin, potato and other vegetable breads, I mixed up some bread with beets. It made a beautiful pink dough.

It baked up brown...


But I liked loved the bread anyway!! It doesn't taste like beets. Well, okay...I could've pureed the beets better because a few chunks snuck in and those tasted like beets, but if you spend a couple more minutes blending it should be problem solved.


So without further ado, a new veggie bread for your Thanksgiving table:


Beet Bread

1 c. cooked, peeled beets

½ c. butter, partially melted

2 T maple syrup

½ T lemon juice

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

1 ½ c. all-purpose flour

Puree beets with butter (to partially melt, I just put a stick of butter in the microwave for about a minute, it’s not exact, just helps to have a little of both, I found) – this is best done in a food processor or blender. 

Mix in maple syrup and lemon juice. Fold in remaining ingredients to form a soft dough.

Place dough in greased loaf pan. Bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees Farenheit for 25-35 minutes (until knife inserted in the center comes out clean).

Thick, dense beet bread. Enjoy!