Beets with Beet Greens

The other night, after Dylan and I had spent all afternoon munching away on various items found in the cupboards, I decided that I should probably make something somewhat healthy to eat. Neither of us was very hungry, but we'd been eating chips and Eggo waffles for 2 days, so I decided that it was necessary.

I wanted to try and find a way to use my beets and their leafy green tops, especially since I've never cooked with beet greens before. I was able to find a simple recipe in a recent food magazine which I altered a bit and I was quite happy with the end result.

For this dish, I started off by adding chopped red onion to a large pan and cooking in a little olive oil until tender and beginning to brown. I then added some thinly sliced garlic and continued to cook until the onions were a deep brown color. Next I added the beets, which I had cut into bite sized chunks along with about a half a cup of water. This was allowed to simmer, covered, for about 5 minutes, until the beets started to become tender. At this point the chopped beet greens were added to the pan and the dish continued to simmer, covered, for another 5 minutes.  The pan was removed from the heat and I added a little red wine vinegar, a drizzle of olive oil, ground red pepper and a bit of salt (I used a mediterranean salt blend, which worked very well).

This dish was very light and flavorful, perfect after the unhealthy eating routine that we had fallen into. Dylan especially enjoyed it, although she happens to be pretty partial to beets