Beets and Orange, Yogurt and Garlic

So we had those left over beets since three days now, lurking at the back of the freezer. After a bad experience of boiled beets, quinoa and alfalfa sprouts that tasted like hmm.. nothing.. we were a bit reluctant to eat the remaining beets. Still, I am a "second chance" person, so I wanted to cook them and make them rock our world, in order not to stick to the bad impression. N. was suggesting to do the blender beet soup we had done in the past, but I was too bored to do something that safe. So I googled a simple recipe about how to roast beets and I twisted it quite a bit. I do not regret it.

Ingredients:

-3 beets (just the root part)

-one orange (you will need the juice)

-a bit of olive oil

-salt, pepper

-a cup of Greek yogurt

-2 garlic cloves (I used garlic powder, because I had a laziness attack)

This is as simple as can be. Preheat the oven to 200 C.  Wash the beets, peel them, chop them to bite-sized pieces. Coat the bottom of the baking tray/ Pyrex with olive oil. Spread the beats on the tray. Squeeze the  juice out of the orange so that it goes on every single beet bite. Salt. Pepper. Done. Take aluminum foil, cover the baking dish. With a fork, make some holes, so that some steam can come out. Put in the oven. Forget it in there for 1 1/2 hours. Read a book. Books are good. But in case you are not an actual book worm, after 1 1/2 hours of "eating" your book, you should be hungry. Open the oven. Lift the aluminum foil and pierce a piece with a fork. Is it soft? Good. If it's not, give it a bit more time. Turn off the oven and put the yogurt in two cups (if you intend to share). Slice the garlic cloves as thinly as humanly possible or press them or just use garlic powder. Put it in the yogurt and mix well with a fork. Now, take the deep purple/ burgundy caramelized hot beets and put them on top of the cool yogurt. No, don't thank me, you are welcome.

Plus, beets have quite a few good nutritional things in them, including vitamins C, B3, B6, B5 and folates. Folates are particularly useful if you intend to get pregnant, as they help prevent neural tube defects in babies.

One more interesting fact is that if you eat beets and notice beeturia (red pigment passing to your urine), then you might want to check your iron metabolism.

I feel that these beets would fit great with roasted asparagus/ Belgian endives/ broccoli and goat cheese. All the above mentioned vegetables will be getting roasted the next days in our tiny oven in many different twisted ways, so stay tuned. 

Sources of science stuff: http://www.whfoods.com, http://www.nutrition-and-you.com