I blush to admit it, but I've never cooked beets before. Well, until tonight. All I did was clean 'em, slice 'em thin, toss with olive oil and salt and roast at 375 until tender. Very, very tasty. Especially the ones that were very thin and got all crispy, like chips.

So, other than making salads with beets and goat cheese (which is threatening to become trite, no matter how much I love it), what else do y'all do with roasted beets? Or what other beet preparations do you enjoy?

I'm partial to pickled beets myself...

Sounds delicious, Porcupine! You said you "cleaned" them. As in scrubbed or peeled?

I tend to avoid beets because of the stains, but I love them very much, and your way sounds so easy!

I just go for the whole, wrapped in foil technique for roasting - then peel and slice afterwards. Good with goat cheese and walnuts on a salad, or with orange slices and chives.

Here is a simple recipe that I got from a French chef. Peel the beets, slice very thinly on a mandoline, and then toss with fresh squeezed lemon and S&P. He said it was something that his mother made when he was growing up and still loves it.

I drizzle olive oil on unpeeled beets and roast them whole with some fresh thyme stalks. Bigger ones, I wrap individually in aluminum foil, and smaller ones go into a baking dish that gets covered with aluminum foil.

Or I boil them.

They get peeled and sliced or wedged after they are cooked and cooled. The boiled beet skins slip off easily, and the roasted ones need a paring knife to peel them, because water has been driven out of the beets by the oven heat, and the skins adhere a bit more. But the flavor is also more concentrated with roasting. I don't mind getting my hands stained, but you could wear rubber gloves if it bothers you.

Beets have an affinity for citrus, especially orange.

I often serve roasted beets as a salad, dressed with orange vinaigrette, with some goat cheese or feta, over some greens, with tomato wedges and cucumber.

Or I toss beets in hot butter with a splash of orange juice, and serve as a side.

Then, there is cabbage-beet borscht. The beets get cooked separately, and added at the end so that all of the veg in the pot of soup don't turn pink.

A beet roesti/pancake is a good thing. There's a recipe here. This can get really messy, though, as you're grating raw beets.

Chris, have you tried this and would you recommend a food processor? I'm having visions of grating beets while encased in plastic wrap.

I've made this several times, but grated the beets by hand (lost the slicing/grating disc to the food processor, but I'd recommend using it if you've got one). The raw beet juice is seriously potent ink-- if grating by hand, do it in the sink, and if you have gloves of some sort, put 'em on (my hands were red for days).

Did you peel them before slicing?

You can also bake them whole, unpeeled, and buried in salt.

Um...do they get cooked at some point?

I do the individually-wrapped-in-foil thing. I always make extra. The ones I don't use right away just stay in their foil wrapping, go into a plastic bag, and into the refrigerator, where they'll keep for days and days. This is really a fool-proof cooking method. A couple of years ago, I wrapped some beets in foil and put them in the oven for about an hour, or so I intended. About four hours later I remembered them. They were still perfectly good!

I haven't made this in forever so forgive the fuzzy description. Back when I first started serious cooking classes we made a roasted veggie roulade that included beets. Roast a bunch of veggies. Separately, layer a bunch of sheets of phyllo dough (each layer is brushed with butter). Lay roasted veggies (veggies should be cut into relatively same size pieces) on one end of phyllo stack and roll up. Bake roll to crisp phyllo. Slice and drizzle with balsamic syrup.

I have to agree with you. I grew up in PA Dutch country where pickled beets and red beet eggs were prevalent. I still love both!

Both, actually.

Not cooked at all.

Got a bunch of beets and cooking part of a beet-themed potluck for a group of 8 tonight. Found this, which looks intriguing, but I've only ever peeled beets post-cooking. "Simply peel and julienne"...I assume peeling raw beets is just done with a standard vegetable peeler?

Fact: bears eat beets.

Bears.

Beets.

Battlestar Galactica.

or a paring knife. Wear gloves.

You don't link pink hands?