Cooking Baking Eating

I’d never had beets until my sister came to visit earlier in the year. She was making us Turkey Asian Meatballs with a side of steamed beets. It sounds like a slightly wonky meal but it was actually quite delicious.

The beets are nice and earthy tasting, my sister said they reminded her of fresh corn. I could kind of see her point but at the same time its completely different. Its earthy but not sweet like corn.

The only time I had ever had beets before my sister came to visit was pickled beets on salad, I always found eating them amusing since it turned my salad purple.

The beets were messy and got red splatter everywhere. It was like a vegetarian massacre.

When I came across this recipe it sounded pretty good, but I didn’t know what I really should be expecting. I figured it would be savory, and beety, but other than that I was just hoping for a warm and comforting soup that would fill me up.

There is nothing quite like making soup this time of year. It’s cold outside (at least here in the Pacific North West) and raining, it’s soup weather!

I’m not huge into the cream based soups, so I like that this soup is rather rich and hardy without all the extra dairy. I like my soups broth based.

Pureeing the soup was a little hairy at first, but then again you have to remember that you need to let the blender vent when you are doing a hot soup! The lid kept popping off and scaring me, I was convinced my husband would come home to a wife covered in the red/purple stuff!

The recipe originally calls for taking aside a small amount of soup to mix in with the sour cream, and drizzle it on top to make a pretty presentation.

I’ll admit it’s quite pretty, but the soup is just for me (since I know the husband won’t eat it, it’s purple and vegetable so it must be alien) so I found this step a little silly. Now if you are serving this for a dinner party it would be quite pretty!

But then reality sets in and I just said “Oh well” and mixed it all together.

Then it turned a pretty pinkish purple and I had to laugh. It was a little hard to eat at first with the color, there are not many savory (or sweet for that matter) foods that are this color coming out of my kitchen.

Overall, I think I will make this one again. It was warm, savory, and made a LOT of soup. Great for those cold and wet days ahead of us.

Savory Beet Soup
(Original recipe found here)
Makes: 8 servings (serving size: about 3/4 cup soup)

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 medium beets, peeled and halved
1 medium potato, peeled and halved crosswise
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon lemon juice
8 teaspoons sour cream

Directions:
Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and saute until tender. Add broth and next 6 ingredients (through bay leaf). Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 20-30 minutes or until beets are tender. Discard the bay leaf.

Puree soup in a blender or food processor in batches, until reaching the desired consistency. Return soup to the pot and warm until thoroughly hot and stir in lemon juice.

(Optional) Combine 1/2 cup soup and the sour cream. Divide soup evenly and top with spoonful of sour cream mixture. Swirl sour cream mixture using the tip of a knife.

Or mix sour cream and lemon juice in the soup at the same time and don’t bother with making it fancy. It tastes just as good!