Foodie Friday: Leeks and Beets

Well, don’t ya know it.  The week I send a leek recipe out to the members of my CSA, we don’t get leeks!

Aw well.  I’ll include it here anyway because it looks so delicious.  Thanks to farm member Darcy for passing it on.  Farmer Lee gave us her new favorite way to cook beets too.  Recipes below!

Pasta with Leek Sauce
6 large leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced into rounds 1/4″ thick
1 T veg oil
3 T butter
6 whole garlic cloves, peeled
fine sea salt
1/2 cup heavy cream
pepper
1 pound pasta (strozzapreti, fusilli, penne or rigatoni)
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano to taste

Soak leeks in a large bowl of cold water to remove dirt. Shake off excess water but do not dry off leeks. Put oil, butter and garlic in a 12″ skillet on medium heat. Cook garlic briefly, stirring; remove and discard it when it turns very pale blond. (I saved the cloves and roasted them in the oven in aluminum foil to spread on bread.) Add leeks to pan, sprinkle them with salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they become very soft, almost creamy in consistency (takes about 45 minutes). If the pan gets dry while the leeks are cooking down, add 3 or 4 tablespoons water. When leeks are completely soft, increase heat to high and continue cooking them until they become colored a pale nut color, turning them over occasionally. Sprinkle with generous grindings of pepper to counterbalance their potentially cloying sweetness. Add cream and reduce it over high heat for a minute or two. Add the pasta to the sauce in the pan, toss together over high heat for a minute, add a generous amount of parmigiano-reggiano cheese and serve.

Braised Beets with Blue Cheese and Walnuts (by Lee)

olive oil
sliced beets
water to cover
fish sauce (tamari or salt could be substituted)
onion
fresh dill to taste
toasted sesame oil to taste
agave to taste (or omit)
blue cheese
chopped walnuts

I heated up olive oil in the skillet then heated and coated sliced beets. Then I just barely covered the beets with water. I added some fish sauce for saltiness, but regular salt or tamari would work as well. I chopped up some onion, some dill, added some toasted sesame oil and a wee bit of agave syrup (I think this could be skipped). I set the beets to simmering and stirred them occasionally. As the beets softened and simmered the liquid reduced to a lovely caramelized sort of beet sauce which coated the beets. Before I served it I crumbled blue cheese on top and wished I had some walnuts to put on top of that.