we got the beet

Not only are beets/beetroot in season around Christmas, they’re remarkably festive in colour too. That should make them ideal ingredients in our meals this month, but beets are too easily made sickly. Their sweetness needs – in my opinion – to either be tempered by roasting, balanced by the savoury or put to good use in something sweet.

I’ll give ol' beetroot credit – they’re extremely versatile and can be used in starters, mains, soups and desserts. Check out a few of the best I’ve seen around.

Starters
Traditional hummus, eat your heart out. Beets and almonds make this dip a festive winner.


Main courses
I’ve had beets in risotto only once, at a lovely cozy little restaurant in San Francisco. While the grains weren’t quite cooked enough for me, I recognised that this recipe for beetroot risotto definitely has potential.


Side dish
This recipe for swiss chard, goats cheese and raisins would compliment roasted turkey or chicken quite well.

Roasted beets and carrots makes for a very beautifully caramelised side dish. I’d throw in a few parsnips too…


Soups
Okay, I think soups are where beetroot is used best.

My fave - beetroot and horseradish soup – a total winner

This one I’m intrigued by, but less sure of: coconut and beetroot soup is either a complete winner or a flat-out loser. You decide.

This recipe's worth a try because it’s local – the London chef Oliver Rowe named it Barnet soup, after the north London borough from which the ingredients came.


Dessert
Beetroot and chocolate are a surprising combination, but it makes sense when you think about it. I had some amazing brownies awhile back (not that kind...) that used prunes for sweetness, and I imagine beetroot works in much the same way in this beetroot chocolate cake.


So get started! If you can't get enough of beetroot, check out this website. Just mind the stained fingers…

a little bit of sole

On the menu tonight is a lovely flatfish called lemon sole, thus named for it’s lemon shape, round in the middle and tapered at the ends. For ages I thought the difference between it and Dover sole was an actual lemon flavour, one that I had convinced myself that I tasted. Looking back, it’s likely that I did taste it, if only because it’s traditional to squeeze a lemon wedge over the top, either before cooking or serving (or both).

In any case, I really enjoy eating it, especially whole, on the bone, though it’s expensive, and more likely to be a treat at a restaurant. At home, the humbler lemon sole fillet shall be prepared – likely, no doubt, with just a squeeze of lemon. It’s a fleshier fish than plaice (also known as flounder), but not as meaty as monkish or halibut (two excellent species of fish).

With this fish, I find that simple is best, and that goes for its accompaniments as well, so tonight I’m using the classic winter vegetable sides of steamed Chantenay carrots (still only 99p in Sainsbury’s – so get them while they’re hot) and purple sprouting broccoli. And for a bit of a twist, I’ll roast whole beetroots. But I think I need something savoury to cut through the sweetness of the carrot and the beetroot. Something that goes well with lemon.

Capers will do nicely – I love how they await their performances so patiently, sitting calmly in their brine in the back of the top shelf of the fridge. A little olive oil and seasoning will bring these little babies to life. And bring some soul to my sole. (Sorry, I couldn't resist)

tis the season for december produce

It's the first of December - though the Christmas season began a few months ago, it feels official now. Lights go up on the streets, red and green decorations are found at each turn, and wonderful winter warming foods are on the menu. This morning on Saturday Kitchen, as two-star Michelin chef Michael Caine (recently voted Chefs' Chef of the Year) said, "There should be no red peppers or asparagus on a menu now. There's just no need."

He's right - with such fantastically fragrant and vividly-coloured root vegetables, the menu possibilities are endless. Read on for how to make the best of December's gifts:

celery
I know a lot of people who dislike celery, but I love it. It's fresh, crunchy and palate-cleansing. As I explained to a friend once, celery works on its own but also as a medium for other foods, like cheese, in place of other, more fattening snacks like crisps. There are plenty of ways to get the best of celery's pungent aroma and fun crunch.

-On a cheeseboard with blue cheese and apples

-Celery risotto (which I'm making this Friday)

-Chop it and serve it in a cold salad with tuna and white beans

-Served with peanut butter, smeared down the middle (great for kids).

red cabbage
This vegetable practically screams winter to me. It must be the vivid royal red of the leaves. An amazing vegetable cooked for three hours or served raw in a salad.

-Braised it, sliced, for an hour with chopped apples, red wine vinegar, cloves, bay leaves and a pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg. Gorgeous served with duck and turnips (which, incidentally, I plan on cooking for Sunday lunch tomorrow)

-Served in a salad with raw root veggies (use a mandolin or the side of a grater).

-Pickled cabbage (it takes awhile if you make it from scratch), in a chicken salad or sandwich

turkey, duck and goose
There's a reason poultry is on the holiday table. While turkey is the leanest and most common of these three, duck and goose have an intense richness to them.

-Roasted turkey is a beautiful thing to behold. But after Christmas, turkey sandwiches are the order of the day, with avocado and spinach leaves.

-I love pan-fried turkey steaks in any season with the best vegetables of the month.

-Duck is a stronger meat which needs rich flavours like wild mushrooms or citrus sauces to slice through the taste. Try pan-fried duck breast (though I would remove the fat before serving) with sauteed wild mushrooms and plum sauce.

-I have to admit, I've never cooked goose. This recipe for roast goose with apple and prune stuffing sounds really interesting.

-Many chefs hail using goose fat for perfect crispy roast potatoes. It doesn't strike my fancy, though perhaps for a Christmas treat, it's not a bad option.

sea bass
I'll always choose fish, on any menu. Although sea bass isn't cheap, the creamy flesh makes it worth it.

-This fish works well with eastern flavour combinations like ginger, citrus and spring onions. Marinate and roast it for 30 minutes and serve with seasonal vegetables.

-Fennel, for some reason, is one of the best accompiaments to sea bass. There are two options that immediately come to mind. Either bake in a foil packet with sliced fennel, or grill a whole sea bass and serve with a fennel, parmesan and lemon salad.

swede, celeriac, turnips, parsnips
Root vegetables are the quiet stars of the season. I must admit, I haven't used potatoes in ages - who needs them when you've got such a selection?

-I love the mix-and-match approach to these roots. Parsnip and celeriac soup has a flavour that can't be replicated anywhere else - this sum is so much more than the addition of its parts.

-Whip up a soup with a mixture of roots, including squash. Then add fennel and radishes. Here's where I admit it is a Gillian McKeith recipe - but erase her image from your mind and focus on the fact that it's a very tasty soup indeed.

-Use the roots anywhere you might use potatoes. Purees and mashes really carry us through those winter months - I have to admit, I don't get bored with them at all. Experiment with different earthy spices in the cupboard and winter herbs like rosemary and sage. (One warning: should you want to roast swede, prepare to wait awhile - I recommend at least 75 minutes.)

-Swede and carrot, finely diced and steamed, is such a fun, colourful side dish. Or, mash them together and use as a topping on shepherds pie.

-I ate braised turnips as a side dish to venison recently and loved it. Braise in a stock for added flavour.

-Grated celeriac works beautifully in salads. Yesterday, I ate a salad with grated carrot, celeriac and beetroot mixed with sliced mushrooms, chopped parsley, lime juice and seasoning.


beetroot
I have been converted to this strangely sweet vegetable. I believe it works best in simple applications.

-Beetroot and goats cheese is a tried-and-true combination. Serve with walnuts and green salad leaves and dash of lemon juice and pepper.

-You've heard my beetroot soup stories before. Here's one.

-Beetroot is a great way to bulk up a salad in place of heavier carbohydrates. I like to make sardine, feta and beetroot salad in a soup-and-salad combination. Use a root vegetable for a soup - spicy pumpkin is a great option.

chestnuts
You can buy this holiday nut in the shells, or in tins or vacuum packs. Determine which one you need based on the recipe.

-Roasted chestnuts have an amazing aroma and are an ultimate holiday treat.

-Chestnut stuffing is a divine option on the Christmas table. I made this one last year and loved it.

-Chestnut soup is still on my to-try list. I can't wait to cook this one.

pears
I went on and on about pears last month, so I won't subject you to it again. But, it's now Pear Month in the States, and as the pears are starting to soften quickly in the fruit bowl, it's time to use them in purees, juices and desserts.

That should be enough to keep us busy for a month, eh?

brightly-coloured salad for a rainy day

Autumn is grey now. Gone are those lovely marigold-tinged and rust-tinted leaves hanging precariously from tree branches. They’re all on the ground now (at least in London), turned to mush by the deluge of rain we’ve had this week.

The only place I’m going to be conjuring up autumn thoughts is in a bowl. It’s not too hard: start with soft green baby spinach, and add some bulgur wheat (100 g, cooked weight, which nets about 110 cals), sliced cooked beetroot (in rounds, which looks great), and that year-round staple, lanky orange carrot, peeled and sliced into thick matchsticks. Top it off with a bit of reduced fat feta (about 25 g crumbled), some freshly-ground pepper, and a capful of white wine vinegar. Divine.

I’ve had this for lunch most days this week, complemented by half a pot of M&S country vegetable soup (in the chilled section, and only 105 cals per half pot!), and loved it each time.

smoked mackerel fishcakes with beetroot salsa

I’m beginning to love Jo Pratt’s recipes. First, a few months ago I tried a wonderful gorgonzola-red onion ciabatta pizza of hers. And last night, entranced by seasonal thoughts of beetroot and cravings for one of my favourite fish, mackerel, I tried this recipe of hers.

However, because of my day-long deluge of DVD-watching and catching up with friends, I managed not to start cooking until 8:30, 9pm. I don’t recommend that. This isn’t a difficult dish, but I felt rushed. And when I feel rushed, I often don’t measure out ingredients as well. I probably could have used less oil, and I will next time.

I halved the recipe, as I was making it for two people.

These fishcakes are great: mashed potato, peppered smoked mackerel, pepper, spring onions, and rosemary (in place of tarragon). One piece of wholemeal bread for crumbs and a tablespoon of white flour for dusting complete the fishcake, though to be honest I’m sure I could go without the flour next time.

For the beetroot salsa, cubed small beetroot, lemon zest, capers, and red onion offered a lovely sweet counterpart to the savoury fishcakes.

Well worth a try, but start earlier than 9am is my advice! I think I’ll give myself an easier task for dinner tonight.

beetroot soup with Little Wallop toasts

I prepared last night's dinner in a flash: most of the hard work had been done previously. During one of my cooking frenzies one Saturday afternoon, I concocted a couple of soups that I subsequently froze.

Straight from the freezer, then, came beetroot soup with red onion and rosemary. I feel this soup is best served as a starter course, but as I wasn’t particularly hungry I decided to cook it as the main course and serve it with little wallop and red onion toasts, which were divine.

We only used half of the cheese, though we succumbed to munching on the other half after dinner. The cheese has definitely improved since we first tried it last Saturday. I can pick up the nutty and citrusy notes now. I’m saving the other wheel for a week’s time, since the cheesemakers themselves recommend allowing it to mature for 3 ½-4 weeks.

Little Wallop and red onion toasts (served alongside beetroot and rosemary soup)
(serves 2)

2 medium onions, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
75 g Little Wallop – or a rinded goats cheese, sliced
2 slices of chunky seeded bread

Heat the oil in a small pan and sauté the red onions over low heat for about 10 minutes, until they are extremely soft.

Toast the bread, and immediately lay the cheese on the bread so it will soften from the heat. Using a butter knife, spread the cheese over all of the bread.

Pile the onions onto the bread and season to taste.

Optionally, cut the toasts into little squares and serve alongside the bowls.

one soup, two soup, red soup, blue soup...

Soups are a great choice weeks like this one: a long, tiring post-holiday season week. Soups are quick, easy, and really capture the essence of any vegetable included in the pot. Even better – they can be made ahead of time. On Saturday afternoon, I made two, figuring it best to clear out the refrigerator of extra produce, lest it go to waste.

One soup..

Beetroot soup – this time jazzed up a bit differently. The week before I used beetroot, onion and horseradish, always a great combination. It tastes great, but it tastes… singular as well. It's not a soup to be regularly slurped down at lunchtime.

This time I tossed in a red onion and some rosemary along with the vegetable stock and let the beetroot soup simmer for about half an hour. Once ready, I whizzed it with the hand blender until perfectly smooth.

The result: A great lunchtime soup, filling and sweet. I may try it next time with some lovely powdery sage.

Two soup…

Wednesday night, after a long walk home in the fresh, nearly-autumn air, another soup was on the cards. I'd seen a recipe for a green bean and parmesan soup, which sounded lovely, but I felt it needed more. Some late-summer garden courgettes did the trick.

I sautéed the green beans, courgettes and a clove of garlic for a few minutes, and then added the vegetable stock. After bringing to a boil and simmering for about 15 minutes, the soup simply needed the hand-blender treatment. I swirled in about 50 g parmesan, a tablespoon of single cream and some freshly-ground black pepper.

The result: This was brilliant. The extra parmesan really crept into the vegetables and gave the soup a lovely soft and grainy yet creamy texture. The courgettes were brilliant – softening the tough green beans.

Normally I wouldn't use both cream and parmesan cheese anymore, but I think I learned a lesson here – there's no reason why both cream and cheese (and even a bit of oil in the sauté pan) can't be used, as long as it's not overused. The result was gorgeous – and lower calorie than a lot of other meals I've prepared recently.

Red soup…

Wednesday night's soup was another Saturday concoction that I've made before: a tomato-ginger soup, but this time with chilli.. I once found it in a recipe served with grilled cheese baguettes with curry mayonnaise, which is still one of my favourites.

I remember making it about a year ago in France whilst on holiday, with a glut of wonderfully ripe tomatoes. I think that was the best one I've had.

The result: Unforunately the chilli (grown locally and wizened in my fruit bowl) overpowered the soup. It may not have overcome it had I served the soup immediately on Saturday, but three days to "mature" was that bit too long. A few dollops of crème fraiche mitigated a bit of the pain, but not enough. I actually had to leave some in the bowl.

Blue soup…

Sorry, it stops here. The only blue soup I've ever seen was Bridget Jones's – and I'm not about to recreate that one.

Three soups in a week was a lot, but not too much, I don't think. But they must have the essence of the season in them. As it's getting a bit colder outside, next week I'm thinking a lovely fish stew may be in order…

garden beetroot soup

I'll put it simply – beetroot is disgusting. It is luridly coloured, it stains your hands, it is too sweet for a vegetable yet not sweet enough to be a fruit, it smells putrid when boiled and really, it's just strange.

But as in the case many foods popular in England that I would previously not have dreamt of eating, I've relented probably owing to its sheer prevalence in the country. People like beetroot! My mind boggles. Even my in-laws make beetroot chutney every year, straight from the garden, to my obvious distaste.

I finally came around to a beetroot and goats cheese salad at a spa lunch in May. The crisp leaves and creamy cheese complemented the beetroot perfectly. Thence forward I have been willing – not necessarily delighted – to experiment with beetroot.

My father-in-law, probably as a joke, offered me some beetroot from his garden last weekend. Little did he know I would accept, and he trudged out in the evening darkness to pull a few.

One grudge I have is the preparation involved – cleaning, peeling, boiling – but once that's done, recipes with beetroot seem to take no time at all – like this one I made mid-week.

Beetroot and horseradish soup

(serves 2)

4-5 medium beetroot, boiled

1 onion, chopped

1 tbsp bouillon powder

1 litre freshly boiled water

Salt and white pepper to taste

1 tbsp hot grated horseradish

Place the beetroot and onion and bouillon powder in a saucepan on med-high heat and pour over with boiling water. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer for about 20 minutes. Use a hand blender to liquidise the contents. Allow to rest, then stir in the horseradish, before blending again.

This soup is ready to serve. Lovely with a salad and a bit of goats cheese.

Calories per serving: under 200

I actually froze the contents in individual servings and brought them for lunch alongside my daily salad to spice things up. Its earthy warmth is really comforting. But you could keep them refrigerated for 3-4 days.

As a side note - foods I have still yet to be convinced of: tinned tuna fish and cottage cheese, just off the top of my head.