Beets in my house growing up always came pickled in a jar. No big deal, but once you taste freshly roasted beets straight from the oven or cooled and added to a salad, then you might change your mind.
Beets like most vegetables are best kept simple. Olive oil is a standard with any oven cooked vegetable for me and a light seasoning with some herbs or spices. That's really all it takes although I did add some Chardonnay and butter to these, because of the booze let's refer to them as holiday beets. As they bake inside the foil, the flavor of the wine cooks through the beets and keeps them moist. Any extra wine can be consumed at your leisure as the beets bake in the oven. Trust me, this should be a step in the recipe.
Not only are beets incredibly good for you, they actually taste great too. I've tried juiced beets with an apple and it tastes so good. Beets are the sweetest vegetable and adding the apple just gives it some great flavor and a little extra sweetness. There's red beets and golden beets, the golden are a tad sweeter than the red beets and not as messy to work with. Beets will stain so don't start peeling them just before you head on out to the office in the morning! More reasons to eat beets, they're cheap and you can eat the green leaves just like spinach. Eat the greens raw or wilt them in some butter or stock. Cooking these baked beets take about an hour in the oven, the foil catches all of the mess and you can concentrate on other things. Cook up a bunch at a time and let them cool and add to a salad with some crumbled goat cheese.
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