Beets, parsnips and carrots make up ‘Holy Trinity’ of root

The 8:30 summer sun slanted across the potato fields casting a peachy light over the northwest valley. As we drove past the rows of purple and white potato flowers basking in the warm evening glow, my daughter and I were having a discussion about gas prices and the fact that it costs me $54.85 to fill up the CRV, which made me thankful to have a garden — especially now.

We had the first beets for dinner tonight, boiled for speed, but they sure tasted great. Nothing compares to picking, and immediately cooking and eating, fresh vegetables.

If you don’t count the endless hours of planting and weeding, I just paid for the entire packet of beet seeds in one meal.

Beets don’t seem to enjoy a huge following, which puzzles me to no end. Everyone I’ve “turned on” to beets goes on and on about them and wants as many as I can give them. I don’t know, but I’ve just always eaten them.

Another bonus of beets is the greens are edible. Notice I said edible, and not delicious. I find them a bit tough and bitter — not being from the South. But they are good in soups.

Oregon, New York and Wisconsin lead the country in table beet production, but Skagit and Snohomish counties grow 95 percent of the country’s beet seed — yea!

Last year I discovered “Chiogga” beets, the ones that look like the “Target” symbol on the inside. They grow extremely well here and are large, and are nicely sweet. But my favorite is the cylindrical purple, for the best flavor and ease of slicing, and the “Detroit” for its reliability.

Yellow beets don’t grow well for me, but they do look great in a salad. I’ve tried to grow lighter colored beets because the red ones do stain, but the red ones really taste the best and look best cooked and pickled.

Over the last few years, roasting has become my favorite way to prepare many vegetables, especially the root type. Beets, parsnips and carrots, cut into sticks and roasted, make my “Holy Trinity” of root vegetables.

Roasting vegetables, with a liberal dousing of olive oil and salt, brings out their natural sweetness and gives them a transcendent carmelization on the outside and tenderness on the inside. Beets need 450-degree heat for about an hour.

Beets are delicious so many ways — pickled, roasted, boiled and sliced with butter, cold in salads and of course in the classic borscht. There’s a great beef borscht recipe in The Good Housekeeping Cookbook that I’ve made for years.

In this topsy-turvy summer, this is the first time I’ve ever eaten beets before summer squash. I did notice the yellow crooknecks were ready to be picked, but the zucchini is just now flowering — because I had to plant it three times. And you’ll be happy to know the green beans are flowering and have tiny beans on them.

A few years back a vegetarian friend of mine gave me a recipe for a beet salad with barley that is to die for. The ingredients are one pound of boiled and grated beets tossed with two tablespoons olive oil, 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and two cloves of minced garlic. Mound three cups cooked barley on top of salad greens and top with the shredded beets. Then crumble four ounces feta cheese, 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, two teaspoons fennel seeds and 1/4 cup fresh basil on top. The components of this salad keep well for days, and when put together taste fresh every time.

If you didn’t happen to put in a garden this year and don’t have your own beets, you can visit the farmer’s market at the Depot Arts Center 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturdays through the second Saturday of October.

I can’t believe it’s August. I think I smell a fallish chill in the air already. Whenever I see the late summer sun setting, it reminds me of Robert Frost poem’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

That poem holds a sort of wistfulness, like the sunset, because the sunset is so short. And like our summer, it’s half over before it’s even started.


Erin Earles works at Epicure in Anacortes when she’s not tending her garden, family and horses in Bay View. If you have a column suggestion or comment, or a question about food or gardening, please e-mail her at .