I always thought that I hated beets. I feel like they get tossed in with other childhood horror foods like Lima beans and Brussels Sprouts (mmmm, Brussels sprouts!). One of the coolest parts of our dietary lifestyle is how much it has opened my eyes to the multitude of possibilities when it comes to preparing food. Just because your mom always steamed your broccoli then smothered it in cheese-like sauce doesn't mean that is the only way to prepare it. I don't know about you but the beets of my childhood were pickled, paired with liver and onions and eaten by my grandmother who loved to force her food onto you. "Come on, just one bite..." Yup. Beets were pretty much ruined for me early on in life.
Last summer we had a fun challenge for ourselves to try a new veggie every week. Somewhere along the way I got brave and decided to give beets a chance. We roasted and drizzled a balsamic reduction over them and they were so. amazingly. good.
As it turns out, there is more than pickling when it comes to preparing beets and we had been missing out! Since then we have had them several ways, including in our homemade juice and now:
In salty, earthy, satisfyingly crunchy chip form! The process is pretty easy:
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| Cut off tops and bottoms of your beets. |
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| Peel away the outer skin. |
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| Give your littler helper his own Gerber knife so he can help. |
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| Slice your beets as thinly as possible. I like using a mandolin slicer! |
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| Put the sliced beets in a bowl and drizzle on your favorite oil. |
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| Add some salt and give them a toss. (We like to use Celtic sea salt.) |
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| Line them up on your dehydrator trays (or cookie sheets). |
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| Dehydrate on 125* (or put in the oven on the lowest setting with the door cracked.) |
24 hours later (or however long it takes to make them crunchy) you have delicious chips to use in dips, eat with sandwiches or feed to your toddler as snacks on an airplane ride to Washington DC.
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| Kid tested, mother approved! |
What a great way to get some great veggies into my baby! And us too for that matter.
If you are interested in reading more about dehydrating, one of my favorite fellow bloggers recently wrote a post about it. Head over there and check it out!
~Sarah
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What brand/make/model of dehydrator do you own? How do you like it.
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