Marinated Ham Steak

The lamb's head is ready, but I had a very draining morning and was not. In addition, the weather today was beyond fine, and not grilling seems like a crime. So. Marinated fresh ham steak (shown above served with the very last veggies from last year's farmers' market).

Recipe:
(serves 2)

1 ham steak
2 c coconut water (found in the juice section in most supermarkets. You really do need this; coconut milk would not work)
1/4 c soy (I used Kikkoman)
1" piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 lg cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 c fresh-grated horseradish root (mine was mixed with beet; thus the pink color)
pepper to taste

Mix the coconut water, soy, ginger, and garlic in a shallow pan big enough to accommodate the ham steak. Marinate 2 hours or more, turning every half hour.

Preheat the Big Green Egg (or grill) to 325F.

While the Egg/grill is preheating, mix the horseradish with 2T of the marinade. Strain the rest of the marinade, discarding the juice. Mix the remaining ginger and garlic into the horseradish mixture.

Put the ham on the grill and spread half of the horseradish mixture on the top. Grill 8 minutes. Flip and spread the rest of the horseradish mixture on top. Grill 4 min more, then shut the grill down and let the meat rest (on the grill) another 4 min.

Eating notes: Yes, the coconut juice matters. It adds an understated sweetness that balances the rest and allows you to make a very simple sauce really stand out. The horseradish loses it's nasal sharpness on the grill, so even if you normally would think this is a bit heavy-handed, it's worth a try.

Roasted Goodness

Everything easy and roasted tonight. Ends up as shin bone with horseradish-yogurt sauce accompanied by basil-smothered roast potatoes, carrots, and garlic.

Instructions: Preheat the egg to about 500F. Turn down to 325 - 350F and start the veggies (equal parts carrot and potato, 1 head of garlic skinned plus 2 oz basil leaves + seasoning and salt and pepper to taste; generously dotted with butter or ghee and wrapped in foil). After about 20 min put on the meat (mine was a piece of shinbone with meat approx. 1-1/4 lb total weight). Cook 12 min one side; flip and cook 12 min the other side (or as you like it).

For the sauce, mix 1/4 c each of fresh grated horseradish (mine was mixed with grated beet, adding the color), plus 1T Kikkoman, plus 1T Lane's cinnamon-tomato sauce.

Eating Notes: This cut is very good, but has a lot of tendon and whatnot. It also has marrow, which, as has been previously noted, is the tithe to the cook. So plan accordingly. A generous 1" cut of about 1.3 pounds including the bone served the two of us comfortably.

Also, Lane's ketchup has now evolved to a point at which there is a hugely strong attack of cinnamon followed by a hint of tomato. It would be challenging on its own. In this case, the tomato tempered the horseradish, and the cinnamon added a sweet bite that worked well in combination.

Smoked Trout with Curried Pecan Salad

Anticipated the most basic of trout dinners, but got home sooner than expected so decided to do something a bit more interesting.

Smoked Trout with Curried Pecan Sauce
(Generously serves 2)

2 trout fillets (1 lb total)
ghee

2/3 c pecan pieces (approx.)
1T fat for frying
1T curry powder
1/4 c mascarpone
2 T prepared horseradish
1 T coconut juice (not milk)
salt and pepper to taste

Soak wood chips (I used pecan wood since I was using a pecan sauce) for 1/2 hour or more. Preheat Egg.

Generously wipe the skin side of the trout fillets with ghee and place on a piece of foil. If there is any left on your hands, just wipe it off on the flesh side.

Add soaked wood chips (drained) to the charcoal and put the grill on. Put the foil sheet with the fillets on it on top. Keep the temperature around 200F.

Make the sauce: Saute the pecans in fat of your choice until they are very well toasted. I used the leftover skillet fat from Tuesday's chicken skin lunch. Stir in the curry powder and mix well, turning off the heat. Remove the pecans and fat to a bowl and cool. Add the mascarpone and seasonings and mix well.

Cook 20 min or until liquid is pooling on top but the fish hasn't started to flake, and close off. You can now sit and enjoy yourself until you are ready to eat.

When ready, plate the fish and add the pecan sauce. Picture above shows it served along with a scrap salad of radish tops and parsley bottoms with a dressing of Dijon mustard and black pepper mixed in well before plating.

Grilled Lamb Shoulder Roast with Potatoes and Leeks

Another easy but good thing to do. Phil was very hungry; I moderately so. So a boneless roast was called for, where we could each take what we want. Leftovers? No problem. No leftovers? No problem.

Instructions for the lamb: Get the Egg well started and then turn it down to the low 300Fs. Put on a boned rolled lamb shoulder (ours was just under 2 lbs and had thawed at room temperature out of the freezer 2 hours or so), fat side up. Cook 1-1/2 hours or so depending on how rare you like your meat and how frozen it was when you put it on the grill.

Instructions for the veggies: For 2 people, I cubed a large russet potato and sliced a leek and wrapped them in foil spread with 1T ghee and with another 3T of ghee dolloped on top. I also added sage, mixed French spices, salt and pepper, and a dash of granulated garlic to the spicing. Wrapped the foil up and put it on after the lamb had been cooking 50 minutes.

Instructions for the sauce: For the sauce I mixed approx. 2T mascarpone, 1T Dijon mustard, 1t Japanese Seasoned Seaweed with Shiitake sauce (desuyo shiitake nori), and 1T coconut juice.

Eating notes: Everything was really good, as was to be expected (arigatou, Mechazawa-san!). It was the sauce that made it interesting. I put the sauce only on the veggies (see initial picture). Phil ate it that way and liked the contrast. I, on the other hand, cut up my meat and then mixed it all together in a sort of hash. I liked the complexity of the sauce on the meat and how all the tastes of the ghee and veggies and sauce and meat combined in a distinct but pleasant riot.

Oh, and no leftovers. No problem.

Lamb Chops with Easy Sauce

Scavenging through the freezer after a long day. Have a week to use up the preserved parts of last year's CSA, so used up some frozen cauliflower and broccoli, served with lamb chops. Complemented with a sour cream garlic sauce, it was really nice. Instructions: The veggies were just boiled in the bag (from frozen) for 8 minutes and then held in the hot water until ready to serve. The sauce was 1/4 c sour cream mixed with 1/2 t garlic powder, 1 t dried tarragon, and pepper (red and black) to taste, thinned with about 1T milk or until of a consistency you likeor the meat, I heated the egg and then the grill until everything was well over 500F. Then I put the chops (again, from frozen) on the grill and turned it down to about 325F and cooked it 8 min on on side; 10 flipped; then 7 on the original side turned off so I could've just left it there for a while. The results, as usual (arigatou, Mechazawa-san!) were perfect.

Mind-blowing Ur Chicken

Intended to make some sort of fancy pressed grilled chicken. But after making 4 batches of cat food and doing a goodly number of weekend chores, decided to be lazy. Remembered something I'd seen in my cruisings (and unfortunately can't remember enough to credit the source of) where they talked about oven-roasting a chicken over a pan of potatoes so the potatoes would be continously basting in the chicken juices and fat. I decided why not try this with Mechazawa-san (the large Egg). Now I don't know if I ever can go back.

Instructions: Take a whole chicken (mine was just over 4 lbs.). Cut up some root veggies (I used a medium-sized russet potato plus 2 md carrots). Put the chicken on a vertical roaster in a pan and lightly coat it with ghee or butter. Place root vegetables around it (see first post picture). Preheat the egg to a very healthy 375F or so (I pushed it up to 500F and then closed it back down). Put the pan on the grill and let the grill die down so it settles in the low 300F's and roast for 2-1/2 hours or so. If you're not yet ready to eat, just close the Egg off at that point and it will stay warm. Serve.

Eating notes: Wow. We each had a drumstick and a wing (See picture above). The bones came off easily but the chicken was still outrageously juicy (arigatou, Mechazawa-san!). The skin was crispy but still had fat attached. The vegetables were really crispy-crunchy-carmelized on the outside and had soaked up tons of chicken fat and juices, while they retained a carrot/potato flavor. It will be hard to entice me to cook a chicken any other way. Ever.

Grilled Swordfish with San on Tou Marinade

When I was a kid, swordfish was something you had at the Danzer's restaurant in Syracuse, NY - the fanciest place we ever got to - and the swordfish was invariably cooked in some sort of lemon and white wine sauce. So I've got this association with swordfish and a lemon taste and have avoided it because of that. But my fish guide (yeah, thanks, Lane!) pointed me at this very nice, uniform and fresh swordfish steak and I said OK, why not, because he's been a good fish guide in the past. So.

Grilled Swordfish with San on Tou Marinade
(Serves 2)
1 1lb swordfish steak

2T San on Tou (or use light brown sugar or maple sugar (not syrup!))
6T Ponzu (Japanese citrus soy sauce)
1t minced fresh ginger
1 lg clove garlic, minced
1 md shallot, minced

Combine all the non-swordfish ingredients and let stand at least an hour for the flavors to blend.

Marinate the fish in the sauce for 10 minutes on each side. In the meantime, preheat a grill (I used Mechazawa-san, the large Egg).

Put the fish on the grill and put a little less than half of the sauce on the up-facing side. Grill to taste (I grilled 7 minutes on one side, then flipped it and closed off Mechazawa-san and let it sit 10 or so minutes more). When you flip the fish, put a little less than the remaining sauce on the other up-facing side.

Plate the fish and pour the remaining sauce over (see first post picture).

Eating notes: This convinced me that swordfish is not a one-trick pony. It had a distinctive flavor and texture, and balanced the sauce very nicely.

Mechazawa-san Lamb Meatloaf with Starchy Tubers

We're both still wanting comfort food. So. Mechazawa-san lamb meatloaf with starchy tubers. Instructions for 2: Mix 3/4 - 1 lb lamb, 1/2 waxy potato diced very fine; 2-4 slices of onion diced very fine; 1/2 t garlic powder (or 1 clove of garlic, minced); 1 T Worcestershire (I use Bulldog for meatloaf); 1 egg; 1T cumin. Cook on the Egg at about 375F for 30 min. Serve on a bed of romain lettuce. Good and reliable.

Courtney's Japanese-theme Marinated Lamb Chops

Beautiful spring night here, with rain predicted tomorrow, so the need to grill. All off the top of my head.

Courtney's Japanese-theme Marinated Lamb Chops
(Serves 2)

4 lamb chops

1 can nameko mushrooms* (juice and mushrooms)
1T Japanese Seasoned Seaweed with Mushroom paste (gohen desuyo shitake nori)
2T dijon mustard
1T lemon juice
*these cans are *really* tiny - maybe an ounce or two at most
(Accompaniment: 2 baby bok choy, grilled)

Mix all the non-lamb chop ingredients (except the bok choy) together. Put the lamb chops in and marinate, turning once or twice, an hour and a half or so.

Start the Egg and preheat the grill (about 4-5 min on full to start and another 4-5 min to heat the grill).

Put the lamb chops on the grill and keep at medium-high. If cooking from frozen (as I was) cook 7 min then flip; 9 min then flip; 6 min then close off the grill. The chops will turn out a nice rare-rare-medium. Adjust cooking times to taste.

If you are cooking the bok choy, add it at the first flip of the lamb and flip it at the second. Or steam it until just done.

Plate the lamb and bok choy. Zap the rest of the sauce in the microwave for 30 seconds (I didn't but wish I had) and spoon next to (see picture at start of post).

Cooking Note: I wanted to grill the baby bok choy and found one thing that may not be suitable to Mechazawa-san. The edges of the bok choy dried out and wilted when the core was cooked properly. I could add foil and be creative to compensate, but the take-away is that I can't just slap stuff like this down on the grill.

Eating notes: Phil just thought the sauce had a nice oil content; I thought it "slime-ified" the way natto does (this is a positive for me). I will buy these mushrooms again, despite their costing like $5 for this outrageously teeny can, just for that effect. We each licked the plate clean (for the sake of politeness, let's say that's a metaphor...)

Mechazawa-san Meatloaf Love

After too many fails in too short a time, I needed something comforting and reliable. Mechazawa-san to the rescue!!

(Updated to be a bit more useful). We were a bit hungry, so made two individual loaves from a pound of beef. Instructions: Mix the beef with an egg, 1T yellow or brown mustard, 1T Worcestershire (I use Bulldog for meatloaf), 1T sage, 2t cayenne, 1t garlic powder (if you're tired lazy like I was; it would be better if you mince a few cloves and mix them in) and 1/2 c glutinous millet or other cooked grain to soak up the juices.* When you make the individual loaves, remember to put a dent in the middle to retain cooking juices and provide a well for ketchup. Preheat the Egg and the grill. Grill directly on the grill 35 minutes on restrained-high heat (about 400F) for 2 loaves. Plate carefully to retain the juices and pour ketchup over.

Eating Notes: Used my old-time ketchup, which I hadn't had since Lane and I did the ketchup comparison back in February. It definitely will continue to improve, but was much better melded having had a month more to age.

* as a whole grain, millet (as opposed to millet flour) is not on my "good" list, but I've had some to use up. So I've been trying to sensibly process the millet as much as possible before I eat it. This millet ended up being cooked twice - first in the rice cooker and then in the Egg. Also, glutinous millet, despite the sound of its name, is not a gluten grain.

Pizza fail

Went to make pizza on the egg tonight and it was a fail - 25 minutes on the grill and still it wasn't cooked and parts were cold. Because the ingredients were veggies, cheese, and pre-cooked sausage on a pre-cooked crust, it was edible, and we were hungry enough by then to eat it, but it wasn't very good.

Diagnosis:
Egg wasn't fully preheated when I put the skillet on. I think the thermometer also needs recalibration. After 18 minutes the cheese hadn't melted and I decided to give it another 7 minutes. I should have realized this was a major problem and just kept on cooking. I forgot that it takes a long time to heat the iron pan and that when the pan and stuff near it is hot, stuff far away may not be.

Irony:
I still managed to burn my mouth on a bit of tomato paste that had gotten very hot indeed.

Marinated Lamb Chops, Yams and Kale

I fasted today (despite lunch with Lane - sorry to be a stick in the mud but you deserve it for not covering for me by blogging yesterday!) because I just wasn't very hungry. But Phil had no such proclivities and by dinner I was ready to get back to normal so, a full spread of lamb chops, yams with herbs and cheese, and lard-fried kale was made to order.

Instructions for lamb: Make a marinade of about 1/3 c peach preserves, 1/4 c Thai chili garlic sauce, 1/4 c cider vinegar and garlic and pepper to taste (pic below shows the lamb marinating). Marinate 2 hours or so, flipping intermittently and spreading the mixture all over. Heat grill (I was cooking the lamb chops from nearly frozen so used Mechazawa-san). Put lamb on. Cook approx 10 min 1 side; flip and add some marinade and cook 10 minutes more; flip and put on, with any big bits of peach on top of the lamb. Cook another 5 min or so and then pull off, keeping the big bits of peach balanced on top. When plating, lift carefully to keep the big bits of peach on top, and pour any remaining marinade over.

Instructions for yams: Put the yams in a layer on a roasting pan. Grate some cheese (Ok, mom, the grater did do a better job...) and sprinkle over (see pic above). Cover with foil. Bake at 400 for 40 - 45 min.

Instructions for "dinosaur" kale: At about 1-1/2" wide at the broadest part of the leaf, dinosaur kale is very thin. If you are using more broadleaf kale you may want to chop more finely. Chop the kale from stems to top in increasingly longer sections from root to leaf (approx 1/2" at the root end and 2" at the leaf end). Heat 3-4 T lard in a heavy pan. When melted and hot, add the kale stems. Saute 4 min or so and then add leaves. If desired, add some soy or soba sauce. Stir fry until well wilted.

Eating notes: I am constantly amazed at how Mechazawa-san can turn out amazing results from things like frozen-solid lamb chops. Arigatou gozaimasu!

Pork Meatloaf and Asparagus

The asparagus at the coop this week looked wonderful, so had to get some and never mind the cost. For protein and fat, used pork leftover from breakfast to make some very nice meatloaf.

Instructions: Heat your grill (Mechazawa-san, the big Egg, was the choice for us). While the grill is heating, mix 1/2 lb ground pork, 1T good yellow mustard, 1T Worchestershire (I used Lee and Perrins), 1T horseradish, 1 egg, and 1/4 c panko. Once the grill is heated, cook approx 30 min or until done. Steam the asparagus 5 - 7 min. Melt 1/4 c ghee. Plate everything and pour the ghee over the asparagus. Picture shows one serving (out of 2).

Eating Notes: Forgot to let the grill really heat up before putting the meat on, so while it was cooked well it could have benefitted more from the crispy/carbon additions if it had gone onto a really hot grill. Note for future reference.

Mechazawa-san Pizza

A staple of my "pre-gluten" days was Mechazawa-san pizza done in the iron fry pan on the Egg. Who knows why, but we were craving pizza so revived the practice with excellent results. Instructions: Heat the Egg; make the pizza; cook at about 375F or so for about 15-18 minutes if you're using a relatively thin crust.

This serves 2. The pizza was made with a ready-made rice flour (gluten-free) pizza crust I had on hand, plus tomato paste, sliced garlic, sliced chili peppers, cooked spinach, cheese, fresh tomatoes, and spicy Italian pork sausage.

Eating notes: I like the rice flour crust - it is very thin and crispy and holds up well. People who like a chewy crust will not like it, though. Even though this is a small pizza, I use a whole can of tomato paste (not sauce) on it. It's a bit low fat and all, but I compensate with a lot of cheese and fatty sausage. We may be reviving weekly pizza night...

Goat Chops with Coconut-Oil Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Wanted something easy but a bit fun tonight. So grilled the rest of the goat chops on Mechazawa-san (the large Egg; 40 min from frozen to nicely medium rare) and made some sweet potatoes that turned out really well.
Recipe:
(serves 2 as a side)
One generous sweet potato
Bacon grease or lard or ghee
Coconut oil
Red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 425F. Line a cookie sheet with foil. Grease with fat or lard.

Scrub the sweet potatoes and slice approx 1/3" - 1/2" thick. Place on the greased foil. Put a small dollop of coconut oil on top of each slice. Shake red pepper flakes over.

Bake 5 min at 425F and then reduce heat to 375F and cook 40 minutes more.

Eating notes: With the instructions given, the potatoes will crisp just a little on the bottom and around the sides. If you'd like them to be soft all over, do it at 375F throughout; if you'd like them more crispy, keep the oven hot for 5 or 10 minutes longer.

Dressed Black Bass

More conversations over fish and was convinced to buy a whole black bass. Looked up a lot of recipes for smoking whole bass and they were all outrageously complex. Until I looked at the recipe for the Egg, which (in a nutshell) was essentially 'stick it on a piece of greased foil and close the Egg and come back when it's done.' So that is what we did.

To semi-compensate, I tried to make hollandaise sauce. Major fail, as I wasn't paying attention and the eggs cooked and separated out. So I strained it through a very fine sieve, added the fish juices to it, and used the eggs as a garnish.

Recipe:
(generously serves 2)

1 whole black bass (approx 3 lbs), gutted, descaled and fins trimmed

1/4 c coconut oil
1 leek (white and light green parts)
1/3 c pecans
2 shiitake mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

Hollandaise sauce (use whatever recipe you have)

Cooking note: If you are using a grill other than a Big Green Egg, don't trust the fish grilling instructions because they will probably dry your fish out. Go wtih whatever your grill manufacturer says.

Smoke fish at 250 for 40 - 45 minutes.

While fish is smoking, make dressing. Heat oil in a heavy pan and add other ingredients. Cook until leeks are done. Remove from heat.

When fish has about 10 minutes left, start the hollandaise. If it fails, strain it through a very fine sieve and use the eggy part for garnish.

Take the fish off the grill and split it in half. You will have to pull out the skull and the spine (see above), and any other bones that don't obviously split in half. Reassemble each half of the fish on a plate. Add the dressing and pour sauce over. Add the garnish if you need to :-).

Basic Lamb Really Good

Sort of an Ur dinner as one can see. Lamb done on Mechazawa-san (the big Egg) and some broccoli with ponzu (Japanese citrus soy). That's it! Really nice. The lamb was perfectly rare and we just ate it like fried chicken - pick it up and go to town. And yes, we did take the time to lift a glass to the lamb.

Shin Bone with Meat

Tonight I wanted to have some of the "old" lamb, but it's under a sack of 57 pounds of "new" lamb that won't be split out until Lane and I do so on Tuesday. So instead I pulled out a cut of beef dubiously labeled "Shin Bone with Meat." I think you are supposed to feed this to your dog.
If you do, you are a fool (unless, as Phil notes, you really like your dog). A simple, good dinner. First post pic shows the meat (about 1.3 pounds total before cooking) just off being smoked on Mechazawa (the large Egg) with cherry wood for about 45 min and then closed off and sitting until we were ready to eat. Picture above shows 1/2 the meat cut off the bone with the marrow sliced out and sitting on the left of the plate.
Served it (see picture above, which shows plated meal - the marrow, cut in half, is the whitish bit on the left) with a red bell pepper and leek salad. The salad marinated about 40 min in a balsamic mustard vinaigrette with some Harry and David Pepper and Onion Relish (because Phil's mom sent him a Harry and David present for his birthday) thrown in. It was really good.

Eating Notes: This was chewy and flavorful and good. Like amazing stew meat. The red bell pepper salad was a good complement. Having the wonderful chunk of marrow to go with everything put it over the top. Take-away message: do not eschew dog food!

Goat Chops

Serendipitous find today. Bit of a backstory in that the lamb I had been talking about during Obama's inauguration was finally delivered late today. So I have more meat than I can use in several months. OK. Lane and I had lunch and it was my turn to pick, but the first Japanese place I suggested was closed. So I remembered this other Japanese cafe said oh! Let's try it and see. It was fine but nothing worth blogging about, except that it happened to be located right next door to Rockville Gourmet Halal Meat. So I said Oh! Let's go there after lunch! And there was no need to twist my fellow foodie's arm.

Once inside I could let my inner zombie go......"brains....brains" and tongues and tails and a prominent sign that said "lamb's head." I was in heaven. Walked out with veal cheeks and a nice plate of goat chops (see pic above. Bit more backstory. My entire conversation with goat as a food involves "curry" or "stew" right after. So I had to have these). And the guy at Rockville Gourmet Halal Meats (phone is 301.424.4444 if you're in the area) was incredibly sweet and gave me a couple of pounds of liver as lagniappe, partially, I think, because I was so happy at seeing offal on offer.

Back to dinnernoms.

Decided to make the goat on Minizawa-chan (the small egg), high heat short time both sides. Steamed the carrots and made a 3G (ghee/garlic/ginger) glaze. Instructions for Goat: Start the grill and warm it up. Grill the goat 4 min or so on both sides until it has a nice skin on the outside but still is very rare (room temp or so) on the inside. Instructions for Carrots: Steam the carrots for about 7 min. Heat 2T or more ghee until hot and add 1 clove garlic and 1/4" piece ginger (both chopped). Saute until just starting to brown and add a shy 1T of san on tou or 2t of light brown sugar and the carrots. Saute 5 min or so until the carrots are glazed and done to your taste.

Eating Notes: Another ZOMG. The goat chop is the same size as a lamb chop, but it's a grown up animal. The muscle fiber is more chewy (but not gamey, the way goat stew is) and has a somewhat metallic (to Phil) or complex (to me) taste. The fat (thanks, Phil) has a more unctuous taste to it. It's really good. We both liked it better than traditional lamb chops because of the more complex and mature taste. So I'll definitely get them again.

Funny Chuck Roast, Marinated Roasted Beets and Scraps

Today we (finally) had FIOS installed. So the pictures took a lot less time to upload, but just as much time to drag around and place. Oh, well.Decided to cook the weird chuck steak I got with an odd lot of great, pasture-raised beef. It had a rib and a section of blade, and nice meat around and in between. The only solution was to just cook the darn thing, cut it up and decide who gets what. Pic above shows it raw. This one shows the part we've saved for another day after it's been smoked for an hour with Mulberry at 325F-ish on Mechazawa-san (the Egg). You can see what we had in the pic at the top of the post (I let Phil be paleo-dude and take that big blade bone while I took the rib section).

The rest of the meal was scrap salad made with some leftover lettuce and cabbage cores plus the ribs and leaves of the beets.
Picture above shows the beets ready to go with the tops cut off. I took the long root ends, and "de-haired" them and put them into the scrap salad as well.

Beet instructions: The beets themselves were marinated and then roasted for an hour on Mechazawa at fairly high heat (350 or so) for an hour. Basic instructions: Quarter beets and slice into 1/3" slices. Marinate in 2T vinaigrette (go ahead and use bottled if you want) + 1 generous T good yellow mustard (yes, there is such a thing) 1-2 hours. Cook (preferably) on a grill or in an oven at 375F or so - no need to be especially fussy about the temp, but try not to go above/below 400/350F for too long if you can avoid it.

Eating Notes: The steak and scrap salad were really good, but I've written about them before so am focusing on the beets.

Earlier when we were at the Fresh Fields (ok, the Whole Foods) looking at the beets, Lane was asking about the golden beets. We started in about beets, and he got to the point of them turning the kitchen and everyone/thing in it purple, but then I backtracked him to being introduced as a child to beets from a can. Preserved, pickled, and utterly gross. Started coming around when I had fresh borscht once in college, and later made some myself, but still was not sold on using whole beets until years later....

....when I had some golden beets, which somehow seemed more removed from the can than the purple variety. Phil and I both agree they are less sugary than purple beets, but they retain that beety texture. Since then, I've branched out to beets of all colors. But today the golden beets were reasonably priced and had nice tops I could use, so why not?