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Roasted Beets with Garlic, Pine Nuts & Quince
Ingredients
3 medium beets, I prefer red ones, but who says you cant use the other kind?a head of Garlic, if you plan to sleep well AND alone
1 Quince or any other sweet/sour firm body in your fruit basket (granny smith apples and pears worked well in the past)
a handful of pine nuts or any other nuts left over from last Xmas party
High Quality Olive Oil - NO excuses
salt, pepper, fennel - to your liking
1 tsp of honey, as if beets aren't sweet enough
Mint, Parsley, Dill - or whatever herbs you may have neglected in your fridge
Feta/Ricotta/Parm - or any other firm and tangy easily crumbled/grated cheese if you are dying to add extra protein
Instructions
This is an easy fix, the only time consuming piece is actually roasting those beets and garlic. The good news is that you can do it at your leisure and store it in the fridge until you are ready to use it. 1. Heat up oven to 400°, place your scrubbed beets ( it means washed in my world) into a baking dish, cover them with foil and roast for about 45 min.
I usually add a bit of H2O to over the bottom of the dish to prevent caramelizing and speed up roasting. (yes, I am an impatient cook).
2. If you are planning to use garlic in this recipe, this is the time to get it in with the beets for roasting.
3. Place garlic (with top of its head cut off) on foil, pour olive oil on top and make a foil wonton out of it. In it goes next to your beets for the same amount of time.
Once done, let the beets cool a bit and use paper towel to remove skin. Slice it to your liking. As for the garlic - I usually use the foil it was roasting in as a "towel" and squeeze the contents in a mixing bowl for further massaging.
4. In the meantime start messing with your nuts - toast those slightly in a frying pan until golden in a skillet over moderate heat. you can throw in those fennel seeds too, if you are a fan. I personally like that combo - gives the dish a fragrant touch.
5. Throw toasted nuts, fennel seeds, salt, pepper together in that mixing bowl you have squeezed your roasted garlic. Add olive oil and a bit of honey if you like and mix.
6. Core your firm sweet/sour/tangy fruit and cut it up into thin slices.
7. Now is the time to toss everything you have cooked/cut up so far together into that bowl with nuts/oil/spices, mix it to coat and return to the oven in a shallow baking dish of some sort for another 10-15 min.
If you like your fruit to be more cooked than not, add a tad more H2O to the mix.
Transfer your beet/fruit to a plate, sprinkle with herbs if you happen to have them and add cheese if you like.
More Side Dishes Recipes