Back in the early days, before we lured Monique into our "So You Think You Can Dance" addiction, we had her over for dinner. On this particular evening, an otherwise bleak day for all of us, we had beautiful summer salad, with radishes and stripy beets. My god, aren't they GORGEOUS???
To cheer her up, I gave her a new bee finger puppet, shown here with the shockingly fuschia spicy coconut milk beet soup. The recipe comes from The Accidental Vegetarian, one of our new favorite cookbooks. In the future, I would strain the soup, unless you like strings, but it was light and flavorful. In fact the beets were secondary to the lemongrass and lime leaves.
Here's the recipe:
Take just over a pound of beets, trimmed and cleaned, and place them in a roasting pan. Rub some vegetable oil into their skins, spinkle them with salt and cover the pan with foil. Roast them in a preheated 400 degree oven until the beets are soft, about 40 mins, then allow them to cool. At this point it shoud be possible to skin them easily and with a minimum of finger staining. Cut them into 1-2" pieces and set aside.
Take 2 stalks lemon grass (outer layers peeled and the remaining stalks cut into managable pieces), 2 cloves garlic, 3 red chiles, a 1" piece of peeled ginger, 4 kaffir lime leaves and the juice of one lime and place them in a blender or food processor. Blend them until they form a smoothish paste, adding additional water if necessary to blend. Saute 2-3 shallots and 1 tsp cumin seeds in a little vegetable oil, until the shallots are translucent and the cumin fragrant. Then add half of the above paste and gently cook together for about 5 minutes. Add half of the beets and stir them together for a couple of minutes, then add 2.5 cups vegetable stock. Bring this mixture to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes. Then add the remaining beets, paste and one can of coconut milk, and puree in a blender or with a hand blender. Strain the resulting soup to get rid of any remaining lemongrass chunks and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the brightest fuschia thing you've ever put in front of someone with cilantro, mint leaves, and/or diced cucumber and enjoy.
Sangria is easy to make, and it's a lifesaver in the summer when fruit turns so quickly (at least it does in our oven-of-an-apartment). Our version here is a mixture of blueberries and strawberries, covered with a bottle of cheap white wine (reds good too), a few splashes of liquor (vodka, rum, fruit liquor, Cointreau, whatever) and topped with fizzy water.
Take 2 stalks lemon grass (outer layers peeled and the remaining stalks cut into managable pieces), 2 cloves garlic, 3 red chiles, a 1" piece of peeled ginger, 4 kaffir lime leaves and the juice of one lime and place them in a blender or food processor. Blend them until they form a smoothish paste, adding additional water if necessary to blend. Saute 2-3 shallots and 1 tsp cumin seeds in a little vegetable oil, until the shallots are translucent and the cumin fragrant. Then add half of the above paste and gently cook together for about 5 minutes. Add half of the beets and stir them together for a couple of minutes, then add 2.5 cups vegetable stock. Bring this mixture to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes. Then add the remaining beets, paste and one can of coconut milk, and puree in a blender or with a hand blender. Strain the resulting soup to get rid of any remaining lemongrass chunks and season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve the brightest fuschia thing you've ever put in front of someone with cilantro, mint leaves, and/or diced cucumber and enjoy.
Sangria is easy to make, and it's a lifesaver in the summer when fruit turns so quickly (at least it does in our oven-of-an-apartment). Our version here is a mixture of blueberries and strawberries, covered with a bottle of cheap white wine (reds good too), a few splashes of liquor (vodka, rum, fruit liquor, Cointreau, whatever) and topped with fizzy water.
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