Beets, they are one of the foods that people really like or really dislike. I’ve slowly discovered that almost everyone who eats them had a bad experience as a child with beets. My Granny always fed them to me and now I always think of her when I eat them. I guess that’s just one of the reason I love eating these bright, sweet roots.

We’ve been making this roasted beet recipe for a while and really enjoy it. It has a great earthy flavor and is very colorful. In the ingredients below, I list 1 red and 1 golden beet. You can use any kind of beet that you like. We usually just use red beets but this past Saturday we were walking around the new Whole Foods in Far South Austin and saw these bunches of golden beets that looked so good we couldn’t leave without them! There are also some that are red and white that are great if you can find them.

If you buy your beets in a bunch, keep the greens from the tops for use later. We’ve come up with really great kale and beet leaf slaw that I’ll be posting soon.

Everyone knows that beets bleed. That is to say, they will turn everything red if given the opportunity. To keep all the vegetables in the dish from becoming solid pink, rinse the red beets in cold water with a couple tablespoons of vinegar before you mix the ingredients together. This doesn’t effect the flavor but it is does make the finished product look better.

Ingredients

• 1 red beet
• 1 golden beet
• 4 medium carrots
• 1 head of garlic (about 10 cloves), cut cloves in half length-wise
• 1/4 cup of finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• fresh ground pepper to taste (about a teaspoon)
• course kosher salt to taste (about a teaspoon)

Instructions

• Heat the oven to 425 degrees
• Cut the beets and carrots into bite sized pieces and then mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.
• Put the beet and carrot mixture into a baking dish and cover in foil. We also line the baking dish with foil to make it easier to clean up.
• Cook 30 minutes at 425 degrees