Friday, July 11th - BBQ'd Organic Beets and Cajun Catfish

I love beets. I love beets pickled, fresh, baked, steamed, grilled, fried or in chip form. I can't believe I used to hate beets. I mean really, I thought they were awful. I remember trying a diet that specified half a can of sliced beets and basically eating them with my nose plugged. I realise now that those canned beets are not the best representatives for this lovely root veg. I mean it would be like judging potatoes on the canned ones or the dehydrated mash flakes.

I try to have fresh whenever I can but they do require some preparation and can take longer than your normal root side dish. One of my favourite quick beet snacks are the tiny pickled jarred ones that are smaller than a pingpong ball. Just pop them in my mouth. YUM. But when you can get fresh beets at a farmer's market, go for it! I prefer to buy them with their greens still on or VERY recently trimmed. I don't like it when they're sold in the supermarket with the greens chopped off and they're all dusty looking. The greens are lovely to eat as well, straight up or steamed.

Grilled Beets with Feta and Thyme

We bought medium, baseball sized ones so it's preferable to chop the greens right off. If you have smaller ones, you can often leave an inch of greens still on since the top hasn't gotten too old or rooty yet. To start, don't trim at all. Keep as you got them to do the washing. All you need to do is wash them under running water and scrub them with a CLEAN abrasive sponge or vegetable brush. Get quite tough when you scrub the dust from the tops. Then to start trimming, you might want to don some rubber gloves. But if you're careful and quick, you'll be okay and only get a little pink. Trip the root end off, and cut out any roots or deep eyes. Cut the tops off. They will start to 'bleed' from wherever you cut them so handle them accordingly. I would therefore recommend you root and trim before slicing. Slice a cm thick. Toss in olive oil and season with salt and fresh pepper.

Grill in a basket for about 20-30 minutes. They'll be tender but not potato tender. I used a basket since some of the slices were to small to put directly on the grill.

When the beets are ready toss with fresh thyme leaves and crumbled feta. MMMMMMMM

D bought two Catfish Filet's at Choices. They were preseasoned with a Cajun Marinade. mmm so easy. All we needed to do was unwrap and brush with some olive oil. I topped them with some Fresh Spicy Oregano leaves. Grill for 2-3 minutes aside.

We had a small green salad on the side dress with a simple

Tarragon Mustard and Lemon Juice dressing.

1 T tarragon mustard

1/2 lemon juiced

1 t honey

2-3 T olive oil (this is much less than is typically used but I like it tart)

Whisk the mustard, lemon juice and honey until smooth

Keep whisking rapidly while drizzling in some olive oil until you have the consistency you like.

Toss with greens.

We had a Callia Viognier to sip on then had a Artazuri Rose with the meal. http://bit.ly/artaz