Beetroot

Aug 05 2015

Back with Beetroot Brownies

Oh boy – I’m sitting here staring at my computer and I must admit… I’m almost not quite sure what to do. Where do you begin when you’ve been away for so long? Well, how about I just start talking about how my summer’s been, and then I’ll see where that leads? I’ll finish up this post with some beetroot brownies, because you can never have too much beetroot (or too many brownies for that matter!).

So, summer? Well – it’s been wet, it’s been chilly, and the number of “nice, sunny days” we’ve had I could probably count on one hand. Disappointing to say the least. Coupled with a late, cool spring, it has not made for ideal growing conditions in the garden. I’ve planted some wax beans and some haricots verts, but they’re small and I don’t think they’ll ever amount to anything much. Especially not now that we’re already in August. My spinach has been growing like crazy though. More than we can eat, so we’re going to pick the lot soon and blanch and freeze it.

Despite the weather, we have had some good days. One trip to the beach, a couple of trips to Rismyrliden, and some visits to Pite Havsbad (ok – it was raining last time we were there, but it’s inside so we still had fun!).

My wife and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on the 30th of July (already?!) by going out to eat in a pretty nice restaurant in town. Certainly not cheap but very tasty! Happy Anniversary dear – and here’s to many more!

Duck breast with orange sauce, fennel and Västerbotten cheese risotto

I’m now (finally!) the proud owner of a grill, so we’ve been enjoying some food cooked outside, in various charred states (ok, I’m getting better now, but it’s a whole art!). I even bought a pizza stone to sit on the the grill which I can cook bread, or more obviously pizzas, on, and some different types of wood chips to smoke the food. I cherry-wood smoked a whole flank of salmon a few weeks ago which was a lot of fun!

So, where have I been? Well – I’ve been here, I’ve just been working like a crazy-man. Running your own business isn’t easy work at the best of times, but juggling studies in Swedish and family life together makes for one hectic schedule. I’m now finished with my Swedish (although will be starting some university studies next term) but hope to try and breathe some life into FiveEuroFood again. It’s been far too long since I posted anything. I haven’t even been that keen on cooking recently. It’s far easier to boil up some palt than cook when you’re working on a deadline, although speaking of those… I must admit that I’ve totally changed my mind on them now. I had them at #8 on my top 10 worst Swedish foods; I still think they’re a bit “special”, but hot dang they’re good. Butter, lingonberry jam… ok, you’ll have a little carb’ coma if you eat too many and need to sleep for the next 6 hours, but they’re really good. Definitely something you should try if you come here, especially if you go Piteå. There’s a restaurant there which serves all kinds of different “gourmet” palt — even vegetarian variants.

So, on to today’s recipe. Beetroot brownies! It seemed like just a couple of years ago people were stuffing beets and zucchini into all manner of unsuspecting cakes and cookies, and then suddenly it all went out of vogue and the whole “gluten is killing us”, “sugar is killing us” craze came along. Sorry — you’ll need to pry my gluten and sugar products from my cold, dead hands. That stuff is staying. Life is too short to deprive yourself of deliciousness when you don’t have to.

Sissi from WithAGlass.com once joked that I should probably have a beetroot blog since I have a lot of beet recipes (ok, we’re not talking hundreds here, but it’s definitely something I have used a great deal in the past). Who knows, maybe I should publish a beetroot cookbook. Anyway, my son is getting more adventurous and less picky with his food. Certain vegetables (ok, most vegetables) are still a no-go for him, although he seems to love celery, cucumber, and raw spinach. I figured if he won’t eat it directly, why not bake the veg into something delicious like a brownie? Besides, everyone knows that even the most unhealthy of foods becomes nourishing and power-food-like when you bake beets into it… right? Right?… ehm… yeah.

Joking aside, I really enjoyed these beetroot brownies. I wasn’t able to cook the beets for as long as I would have liked so it meant they were still a little hard when I puréed them. Not a problem for me because I just love me some beetroot, but unfortunately my mother-in-law wasn’t a fan. However, as long as you make sure the beets are sufficiently cooked then you’ll really never know they’re in here.

Have a great day folks, and here’s to hoping I’m able to post here with a little more regularity!

Yields 20

Beetroot Brownies

Moist, rich, chocolatey brownies with less sugar and fat than regular versions, and filled with naturally sweet beetroot

30Prep Time

25Cook Time

60Total Time

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Ingredients

400g Cooked beetroot
200g Plain chocolate
100g Butter
3tsp Vanilla sugar
250g Caster sugar
3 eggs
100g plain flour
25g cocoa powder

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and then place the butter, chocolate and beetroot into a food processor and blitz until combined.
Place the caster sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs into a large bowl and whisk until frothy and pale.
Mix together gently with the beetroot, chocolate, and butter and then add in the flour and cocoa powder and fold in until well combined.
Grease and line a large, square baking tray with greaseproof paper, and then pour in the batter.
Place into the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely in the tin before cutting into squares and enjoying.

https://homesweetsweden.com/back-with-beetroot-brownies/

Mar 10 2014

Beetroot Muffins, a.k.a how to trick kids into eating vegetables!

Sissi from Withaglass.com made a funny comment on my croquettes recipe the other day about how she felt it was a little worrying if she didn’t see a recipe containing beetroot once in a while. That got me thinking – perhaps I post too many beetroot recipes, especially given the fact that nobody seems to like them. Then I shook that crazy feeling off and figured that no; it’s everyone else who’s wrong, and that beetroot surely is the epitome of good eating (well… almost).

So I had a pack of cooked beetroot left over from my croquettes and needed to find something to do with them. Faced with a son who currently seems obsessed with bread and butter (which he seems to use as a face cream) and not much else I figured it was high time I try and get some more vegetables into his diet. Naturally, giving him a stick of beetroot would have been met with him vigorously shaking his head from side to side and saying “neh, neh” so I had to find another solution.

Beetroot Muffins

It’s no secret that many people already bake in things like courgette, and beetroot too, into cakes and breads to disguise them, so I took my inspiration for my beetroot muffins from this. I’ve no doubt that by the time the beets are boiled and vacuum-sealed and stored on supermarket shelves for… months…(at least in this case – less so if you cook them yourself) and then shredded and baked into a cake, there’s probably not a whole lot of nutrients in them, but at least I can say I tried, and feel better about feeding what is essentially a “cake” to my son.

I used a typical sponge base for these, but halved the sugar, and threw in the beetroot – knowing that they would impart a good amount of background sweetness. My wife said I could probably have gone even lower with the sugar, and I agree – especially if you decide to add in something like chopped apricots, dates, or prunes. I’ve added in some sesame seeds for a bit of texture and apparently they’re a great source of copper, manganese, and calcium. Next time I make beetroot muffins I think I’ll also add sunflower and pumpkin seeds – perhaps poppy seeds too!

And finally…

You may have noticed my redesigned site? It’s fully responsive and will adapt to any screen (even mobile!). I figured since I had a nice new logo, the time had come to go for a more minimal, clean site design. Remember that I was selling some prints of my photos? I used the opportunity of the redesigned site to add a new feature. If you don’t want to buy a print, but would rather print it yourself, you can now buy the image files directly on my site (and support me in the process!). Check out my store which I’ll add more photos to over time, and if you order two or more photos right now you can get a 20% discount using the code 20PERCENT

[button link=”https://homesweetsweden.com/index.php/store/” color=”silver”] Go to store…[/button]

Yields 10

Beetroot Muffins

A moist muffin, with hints of earthy sweetness, hiding shredded beetroot and nutrient-rich sesame seeds.

15Prep Time

25Cook Time

40Total Time

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Ingredients

180g Butter
90g Sugar
3 Eggs
180g Plain Flour
2tsps Baking Powder
5tbsps Sesame Seeds
2 large boiled Beetroot, finely grated

You'll also need10 paper muffin cases

Instructions

Start off by preheating your oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Break in the eggs, one by one, beating the mixture well between each addition.
Sift the flour and baking powder together into the batter and fold in. Gently stir in the sesame seeds and grated beetroot until well combined.
Divide the mixture between 10 large muffin cases and place into the preheated oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Remove and allow to cool before enjoying.

https://homesweetsweden.com/beetroot-muffins/

Feb 15 2014

Beetroot and Potato Croquettes

The best potato croquettes I ever had were some gloriously creamy things with cheese and ham in the middle. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside – as a good croquette should be – with cheese oozing out from the centre when you broke into them. They were made even better by the fact that the restaurant I was in was exceptionally nice. It was a very fancy-looking place in Tokyo, during one of my visits there, and the entire place was covered in black marble. The lighting was dim, the voices hushed, and it had a stream and pond running through the whole restaurant, with frosted glass walkways taking you over the water to your seats.

I don’t remember anything else about what I ate there – the croquettes have stuck in my mind because they were amazing. You’d think it shouldn’t be so hard to recreate such a thing, but you’d be wrong. I’ve tried a number of times over the years to make a croquette as good as those that I ate that evening but I’ve never succeeded. Eventually I decided that perhaps I wasn’t approaching the task in the right way. After all, such a croquette has many things contributing to its success; at the very core, you have to get the cheese right for the centre. After this you have to get a really good creamy mashed potato and then coat them in the right way before getting the oil temperature right for frying.

As a result, I decided to try and master the basic concept of croquettes first, before trying to recreate something from so long ago which holds such delicious memories. I happened to have a load of cooked beetroot after seeing them cheap at the store and I sure love beetroot as you may know so after thinking for a bit, I came up with…

Beetroot and Potato Croquettes

These worked very well, even if you’re not a beetroot fan. I say it every time, but the beetroot flavour isn’t overly apparent here so I think anyone could enjoy these, but some people are real beet haters so I guess I’ll never be able to win over everyone.

My wife suggested that these might also be great with crumbled feta in the middle with the beetroot. I think that’s an excellent suggestion since beetroot and feta go together very well, so by all means try this if you have a chance – I know that I will next time.

The sauce isn’t anything special so rest assured that I’m not holding back on you. I mixed a bit of mayonnaise and sriracha together and although I’ve no doubt it would have been better with a “proper” sauce, this one does work well. I can also confirm that they are great when served with hummus as I had this combination for lunch the very next day.

As you can see my shaping technique still needs a bit of work, especially when it comes to putting the filling in but the beetroot and potato croquettes were good so I hope you’ll have a chance to give them a try. Have a wonderful day everyone; I’ll be back soon with the next instalment in my “Typically Swedish” posts and then will share a new recipe in the post after that.

Yields 20

Beetroot and Potato Croquettes

A crisp breadcrumb shell encases fluffy mashed potato with a rich colourful beetroot centre. Great as a starter or side dish.

20Prep Time

20Cook Time

40Total Time

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Ingredients

4 - 6 large Potatoes (depending on size)
2 large cooked Beetroots
50g Butter
200ml Milk
2tsps Salt
2tsps Freshly-ground Black Pepper
2 Eggs
100g Panko breadcrumbs

You'll also need500ml of Sunflower or Canola oil for frying

Instructions

Start off by peeling the potatoes and chopping them into chunks. Place into a large pan of water and bring to the boil. Once boiling, cook for about 10 minutes until soft enough to run a fork or skewer through.
Drain the potatoes and mash them well together with the butter, milk, salt, and black pepper. Set aside to allow to cool slightly.
While the potatoes are cooling, mash the beetroot well in a separate bowl.
Taking small handfuls of mashed potato, roll into a ball and press your thumb into the middle. Spoon some of the mashed beetroot into the hole and then seal by pressing the sides of the ball to cover the hole. Roll to form a ball again and then flatten gently. Set the ball aside on some baking paper.
Keep going until you've used up all the potato and beetroot and then crack the two eggs into a bowl and whisk together.
Pour the oil into a large pan and then start to heat up. Meanwhile, place the panko into a bowl and then turn the croquettes over one by one in the egg until well coated and then transfer to the panko, turning to coat.
Once the oil has reached approximately 160 degrees Celsius then place the croquettes, a few at a time, into the oil. Fry until golden brown all over, turning if necessary. Remove from the oil and set to drain on kitchen paper before frying the next batch.
Serve as a starter or side dish with a sauce of your choice and enjoy!

Notes

If you don't have an oil thermometer then test the oil temperature by dropping in a cube of bread. If it starts to sizzle then it's ready. You can crumble in some feta cheese with the beetroot for an alternative recipe, or even add grated onion into the potato. There are many ways you can adapt this recipe.

https://homesweetsweden.com/beetroot-and-potato-croquettes/

Feb 02 2014

Pasta-less Lasagne and the giveaway winner is…

Hi folks, I hope you’ve had a great week. I sure have. Remember how I mentioned that I was starting studying again? Well, I’ve cleared that course now. I took the final exam after 3 weeks, passed with an A, and now I’m jumping straight into something roughly equivalent to high-school level Swedish. With any luck, this will be the last step I need before I can enter university here, although this step of learning is split into three parts, and most certainly will not take three weeks but I’m on my way at least!

Before moving on to the food today it’s time to announce the winner of my giveaway I posted last week! Yep, after a week of caffeine-fuelled excitement, I’m now summoning up the powers of random.org to pick the winner. There were 32 valid entries in total, based on my count of parent comments which met the minimum required (and subsequent optional) criteria, so without further ado, the winner is…

[learn_more caption=”Click to view winner…”]

Nazneen, from Coffee and Crumpets

How apt! Too bad I wasn’t doing a crumpet giveaway. Congratulations Nazneen – please get in touch with me here, or by email within 48 hours to claim your coffee!

[/learn_more]

Time for pasta-less lasagne

This is something I’ve been wanting to make for a while. It was actually my wife’s idea (though my own execution, I must add) and I must say that it’s really worth a try. Think lasagna, but pull out the pasta. Ok, let’s replace the pasta with something, but what? Why, leek my old friend – your long, thin layered leaves (are they leaves?) make a perfect replacement for pasta. Of course, if you’re not a fan of leek, you could try instead my aubergine pasta-less lasagne, which works just as well!

You end up with a great pasta-less lasagne, with very clearly defined layers, just as you would with regular pasta. The only potential pitfall is that the leek layers aren’t the easiest thing to cut through and you risk ruining the structure of the dish. As a result, I’d recommend using scissors to cut through the lasagne, or, alternatively, steam the leek “sheets” for a while before use. I used them raw which worked fine, but you can always play with the recipe to suit your needs.

My lasagne was a little flat – only two layers – but I made it in a huge pan, so you can of course stack it up as high as you like, depending on the size of your dish. I also added in some beetroot to the meat sauce because, well, beetroot is awesome and brings a delicious earthy sweetness to dishes. I crumbled some feta over the top as well for a bit of variation which worked very well with the beetroot in the lasagne.

Enjoy the pasta-less lasagne folks! I’ll be back next week with a gourmet twist on a crowd pleaser – although I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to make them but if they end up looking like they do in my head then they’re going to be fantastic!

Serves 6

Pasta-less Lasagne

A delicious, light pasta-less lasagne. Leek plays the star role here instead of pasta, sandwiched between layers of rich, meaty sauce with the sweet, earthy flavour of beetroot and all topped off with a smooth béchamel sauce, cheddar, and feta cheese.

30Prep Time

30Cook Time

60Total Time

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Ingredients

For the meat sauce400g minced Beef

1 large Onion
3 cloves Garlic
140g Tomato concentrate (~4 tbsps)
2 cans (800g) crushed Tomatoes
2 large, boiled Beetroots, grated
200ml Water
~6 tbsps Olive Oil
1 tsp dried Oregano
1 tsp tried Thyme
1tsp Salt

For the béchamel sauce50g Butter

4 tbsp Plain Flour
0.6 litres Milk

For the layers2 large Leeks, with ends and tops cut off.

For the topping200g Hard Cheese, such as Cheddar, grated

100g Feta Cheese, crumbled

Instructions

In a large pan, start off by heating the olive oil for the meat sauce. Finely chop the onion and garlic and sauté in the hot oil until starting to turn translucent. Add in the minced beef. Mix well and continue cooking until the meat is cooked through and browning.
Add in the crushed tomatoes, tomato concentrate, water and grated beetroot and mix well before finally adding in the oregano, thyme, and salt and stirring in.
Cook the sauce on a medium heat, stirring from time to time, until it has reduced down a little and thickened up.
In another pan, melt the butter for the béchamel sauce and then add in the flour. Whisk together and cook the flour and butter together until a light caramel in colour before adding in the milk a bit at a time until you have a velvety sauce. You may need a bit more, or a bit less milk depending on how thick (or thin) you like your sauce.
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and then slit the leeks down their lengths and peel off the first 6 or so outside layers (the leaves will get thicker towards the centre). Wash the leaves thoroughly and line the bottom of a lasagne dish with 2 or 3 or them.
Place some sauce into the dish and spread out before topping with some béchamel sauce and some more leek. Add some more sauce, béchamel, and leek layers, and keep on going until finally finishing off with a layer of leek and pouring the rest of the béchamel sauce on top.
Sprinkle over the grated cheese and crumbled feta and then place into the preheated oven. Bake for about 30 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and the feta is starting to brown slightly. Serve, and enjoy!

Notes

Many people will make their lasagne and only add béchamel on the very top. I personally prefer to have it distributed throughout, but if you like it on top only you can easily omit adding it on top of each meat sauce layer, and simply scale down the béchamel ingredients by half.

https://homesweetsweden.com/pasta-less-lasagne/

Jul 23 2013

Beetroot Carpaccio

Serves: 2
Cost: ~€4.30
Preparation and cooking time: 15 minutes
Calories: n/a

So, my laptop broke :(. I’d been meaning to replace it for a while – it had been running insanely hot and you couldn’t even really touch the exhaust vent without getting a mild burn on your hand. I cleaned it out with a can of compressed air, closed it and then went off to have dinner. When I came back I opened it up again, only to be confronted by an error, stating that “The system has detected that a fan isn’t working and it may be unwise to continue”. Sure enough, the fan wasn’t moving at all. “Oh dear”, I thought.

Well, a bit of poking and prodding later I managed to make the fan spin into life, shooting out a cloud of dust with it. Great, except then the screen didn’t come on and I just got a flashing error light on the keyboard. Oh well; I ordered a new one, paid for extra quick shipping (it got delivered from England the next day… how’s that for speedy?!) and so finally I was back online again. One problem though – Windows 8.

I pity anyone who has to use Windows 8 on a laptop. Sure – it might be great with a mouse, or on a touch-screen, but a laptop? Moving my finger on the trackpad kept bringing up stupid menus and randomly minimising my programs. Worst of all… there wasn’t even a start button. No: Microsoft thinks we should all use their “app tray” or whatever it’s called. Horrible, horrible design. Still, after making a few changes to the Windows registry, and installing a third-party app I’ve now banished the “app tray” and “swipe gestures”, and I even have a Start button back… hooray, all is well once again!

We’re having some hot weather at the moment and when it’s so hot, the last thing you want to be doing is standing over a stove. I had a couple of beets in my refrigerator and hadn’t been quite sure about what to do with them and then I decided to do a beetroot carpaccio. Beetroot on its own might be a little boring I thought, so I bulked it out a bit with mozzarella, and even made a little salad of diced tomato, olive oil and garlic to put on top.

As I was slicing (and munching on) the beets I started to worry if the carpaccio might end up being a little bland. The beetroot wasn’t as flavoursome as I’d hoped but by the time I’d paired it with the olive oil and lemon juice I needn’t have worried. The lemon juice lifted out the beetroot flavours perfectly. Earthy, yet sweet; crunchy and rich. We ate it with some baguette I’d bought and it was a perfect, light dinner. You could serve it on its own as a starter no doubt but with the bread it fills you up very well.

Have a great day everyone and I’ll see you back here again soon!

Beetroot Carpaccio

Ingredients

2 balls of Mozzarella
2 medium Beetroot
2 medium Tomatoes
2 cloves of Garlic
A small handful of fresh Basil
Juice from 1 Lemon
4tbsps Olive Oil
Freshly ground Black Pepper

You’ll also need

A Mandoline Slicer

Instructions

Start off by dicing the tomatoes. Mince the garlic and then mix together with the tomatoes and half of the olive oil in a bowl. Set aside and allow the flavours to infuse while you prepare the rest of the dish.
Peel the beets and then, using your mandoline slicer, slice the them as finely as possible. Set the mandoline to the thinnest slice setting and try to get the slices about 1mm thick or less.
Finely slice the mozzarella and then chiffonade the basil – you can do this by aligning all the leaves, rolling them up along their length and then slicing them finely to create ribbons.
Arrange the beetroot and mozzarella between two plates – I made concentric rings of first beetroot, mozzarella, beetroot again, mozzarella and then a final centre of beetroot. Drizzle the lemon juice and remaining olive oil over the plates and sprinkle on the freshly ground black pepper and basil. Serve the tomato in the centre of the plate and enjoy! Eat with bread for a main course, or serve on its own for a starter.