An Appetizing Start – and the Beet Goes On...

What’s cooking? Golden Beet Soup and Cucumbers in Pesto

Let’s get a bit on nomenclature out of the way first. Who here knows the difference between an appetizer and an hors d’oeuvre? It’s a trick question, because there is no difference. Sort of. You’ll notice on a restaurant menu that they never call the first course “Hors D’Oeuvres”; those are listed as “Appetizers.” So you’d think that means that appetizers are bigger, more substantial items, and hors d’oeuvres are little noshy things you pass around at a party. But the phrase “hors d’oeuvre” just means “off the work,” where “the work” is taken to mean the featured item (think work of art). A side dish, so to speak. And that says nothing really about the nature or timing of a dish. So an appetizer is a more specific pre-dinner item, but conventionally speaking, an hors d’oeuvre would be the same thing.

Whenever I’m getting ready to entertain guests, I always have to remind myself that the purpose of appetizers is to stimulate the appetite, to get your taste buds producing those gastric juices so that the digestive process will be really primed for the main meal. The idea is not to fill the guests up so that they don’t need the meal.

Now for reasons known only to herself, the Kitchen Goddess likes to have at least three items on the appetizer tray. As the pressure builds and the time grows short, she almost always has an appetizer that gets 86̓d in that last hour before the ball drops. But it’s important to remember that a bowl of salted nuts or olives is a perfectly acceptable appetizer. (Salty foods being great stimulants for the taste buds.) So if you can keep in the habit of stocking salted nuts or chips or pretzels or olives, you’ll always have something that can substitute for a more elaborate item that you no longer have time to produce. Also, if you are like the Kitchen Goddess and occasionally are not completely ready when the guests appear at the door, it’s good to have something to soak up the alcohol during that possibly lengthy time while you’re finishing the main work. Which also means that hors d’oeuvres should not be the kind that need the cook’s attention.

Which brings us to today’s recipes. The first is a cold soup – you folks remember how fond I am of cold soups? Light, mellow-tasting, and a wonderful color, this soup is easy to make a day or two before you serve it. The tang of buttermilk gently balances the natural sweetness of the beets, and the soup is beautifully garnished with olive oil, pickled shallots, and fresh herbs.

Not everyone likes beets, and I get that. Grumpy is in that category. He tasted this soup and said it wasn’t bad, but “In the end, it’s beets.” So if that’s the way you feel about them, that’s okay. But if you’re on the fence about beets, you might give this one a try, because the flavor of golden beets is sweeter, less earthy, and mellower than red beets. And if you actually like beets, well then, you are in for a treat.

Golden beets are easy to find this time of year. And they are great for you. As with most deeply colored veggies, they’re high in many vitamins and minerals. Heart healthy and high in antioxidants, they’re good for kidney function, eyes and skin, blood pressure and cholesterol. They’re also useful in treating anemia and fatigue.

I found this recipe in a New York Times article about The Lost Kitchen, a relatively new restaurant in the wilds of Maine that operates only eight months of the year. Under chef-owner Erin French’s guidance, it has become so popular that she is completely booked from May through New Year’s Eve in a single day. So whether or not you can become one of the lucky customers, you can experience Chef French’s expertise right here, today.

Golden Beet and Buttermilk Soup

Adapted from Erin French, chef-owner of  The Lost Kitchen, as seen in The New York Times.

YIELD: 4 to 6 servings as a first course, 10+ as an appetizer

Ingredients 
2½ pounds golden beets (4-5 large)
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for serving
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
2 cups buttermilk
juice of ½ lemon, (a little more than 1 tablespoon)

Garnish:
Small handful of basil leaves
Small handful of dill fronds
⅓ to ½ cup sour cream (optional)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400°.

Trim the leaves off the beets down to 1-2 inches from the bulb. No need to wash them, and do not cut off the tail of the root. Wrap the beets in aluminum foil or put them into a casserole and cover it tightly with foil. Bake large beets 50-60 minutes. Let them cool in the foil or covered dish. Once they’ve cooled, the skins will rub off easily with your fingers.







In the meantime, make the garnish: In a small bowl, combine chopped shallots and vinegar and let macerate for 20 minutes. Whisk in 2 tablespoons olive oil and season with a few grinds of black pepper.

When the beets are cooked, cut 1 beet into a small, even dice (about ¼ inch), and add it to the shallot mixture. Season to taste with salt and set aside. This will be the garnish.

Cut the remaining beets into large chunks and purée in a blender with the buttermilk and lemon juice for 2 minutes or until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate the soup until completely cool.

If you’re serving the soup as a first course at the table, drizzle each bowl with a teaspoon of olive oil. Sprinkle the diced beets/shallots on top, with herbs and sour cream on the side, so guests can garnish their bowls as they like. Or serve it as an hors d’oeuvre in small glasses, with a few drops of oil, a little of the beet-shallot mix, and a few of the herbs. Add sour cream, if you like. (I did not.)

This soup can be made a day or two ahead. Just let the beet-shallot garnish come to room temperature before you serve, so the oil isn’t congealed.

And now for an even easier appetizer.

Cucumbers in Pesto

You probably already keep at least one variation on a  pesto recipe – if not, here are two absolutely swell versions:

■ Basil pesto
■ Arugula pesto

The only other thing you’ll need is a package of Persian cucumbers – or at least that’s what I think they used to be called. Now, they’re so popular they come from Canada and are called mini-cukes. Whatever. They’re small versions of the seedless English cucumbers – milder than regular cukes, with thin skins and almost no seeds. Very nice taste and texture..


Slice the baby cukes at an angle, in pieces about ½ inch thick. Mix them in a bowl with some pesto, and give the mix about a half-hour to combine flavors. Serve with toothpicks. You’ll need about ¼ cup of pesto for 3 mini-cukes.

Note: You can also serve this combination on a bed of lettuce or in small bowls as a salad.

Flights of Fancy Food What’s cooking? Artichoke Pesto and Salad Shirazi

The Kitchen Goddess is chagrined to note that it’s been more than two weeks since my last post. A shameful situation, to be sure, but we – my hubby and I – have done an obscene amount of travel this year (at least one trip per month), and it’s difficult if not impossible to collect my already scattered thoughts while on the road. But I will attempt to catch up today with not one but two easy recipes that celebrate spring.

In light of all this travel, it’s a vast understatement to say that I’ve had my fill of airport food lately. Of course, there’s no such thing as airline food anymore, unless you’re flying first class, where, believe me, the food they’re serving isn’t even up to what they used to serve in coach. So my habit of packing a few snacks has become something of an obsession. Part of it is driven by my desire not to throw away perfectly good food, yet it’s tough to imagine showing up at my neighbor’s doorstep with, “Hi, would you like some leftover risotto? Or this half of an apple? How about a cup of cucumber salad?”

The packing almost always takes place in the last few minutes before we leave. My prince checks his watch and paces while I stuff the food into baggies and wedge it carefully into my carry-on, adding one of those little cellophane packages of fork/spoon/salt/pepper and a couple of paper towels, because you can’t rely on airplane napkins to keep your hands clean. For our latest trip, I took a hard-boiled egg, an apple (which I sliced), and a pear (also sliced). I thought about adding some cheese, then decided against it to save my marriage.

The flight was just to Houston, only 35 minutes long, and he reminded me more than once that we’d have time to grab lunch in the Houston airport, so the food was really superfluous. Then a funny thing happened on the way to Houston. There was lots of turbulence, and as the plane neared the landing strip, the pilot made an abrupt adjustment and took us back up into the clouds. Whoa, what was that about?

“Sorry, folks,” said the pilot. He added something that sounded like, “Blah blah wind shear blah blah.” After which we spent an extra 20 minutes or so flying around for a new approach. A little unsettling, but we finally made it to the gate. Can you see where this is going?

“I hope we don’t miss our connection,” said my husband. “Looks like we won’t have time for lunch.”

I said nothing, but smiled triumphantly to myself as I thought about my stash. We made the connection (just barely), and as I unearthed my “lunch,” the look on his face reminded me of a golden retriever we once had who would follow me around the kitchen hoping for anything edible to fall on the floor. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We can share this.” But next time, I’m also packing that cheese.

* * *

All this travel has played havoc with my diet, so I’ve been concentrating lately on salads and other veggie-centric dishes. Today, I have two great finds for you: an hors d’oeuvre and a salad. Both would be great, by the way, as airplane lunches.

The hors d’oeuvre is Artichoke Pesto, another on my list of great pestos and a winner for anyone who likes artichokes. The Kitchen Goddess loves them. It was a find of my friend, Ellen, who says it began life as a Weight Watchers recipe. I’ve tweaked it a bit, increasing the garlic and adding lemon juice, but the master stroke was to use those marinated artichokes you find in the relish bars offered by most large grocers these days. You can trim back the calories by using canned artichoke hearts, but I think the oil- and herb-marinated hearts offer a huge improvement with very few added calories. If your grocer doesn’t have a relish bar, or it doesn’t stock artichoke hearts, go for the jars in the relish aisle. Just find a brand that incorporates some seasoning. And the marinated hearts don’t turn brown like the ones packed in brine.

This pesto is best if it’s the tiniest bit chunky, so I wouldn’t just turn on the food processor and walk away. Pulse it until the mixture reaches a consistency that’s spreadable, but not a purée. The Kitchen Goddess is so fond of this stuff that she’ll eat a large scoop of it over lettuce for lunch with crackers. Or over scrambled eggs with blue corn tortilla chips, like this, for breakfast.

Artichoke Pesto

Adapted from Weight Watchers, Inc.

Makes about 2 cups.

1¼ cups marinated artichoke hearts, drained with 1 tablespoon of the flavored oil reserved
2 medium cloves garlic, minced
1¼ cups fresh basil leaves (packed)
¼ cup pine nuts
3-4 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
½ teaspoon (rounded) kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a small Teflon skillet over medium heat, toast the pine nuts until they turn a golden brown (about 5 minutes). Add the nuts and the rest of the ingredients (including the reserved oil) to the bowl of a food processor and pulse until coarsely ground. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Transfer the pesto to a bowl, cover and refrigerate about an hour before serving, to allow the flavors to come together. Serve as a spread with crackers or chips or vegetable crudité.

* * *

My grocery store has this year been stocking bags of what I thought to be some variety of hothouse cucumbers. But in researching about this recipe, I discovered that they’re actually Persian cucumbers, a variety that’s been around for more than 3000 years! I wonder what took my grocer so long...

These cukes – also sold as Gourmet Baby Cucumbers – look more like the large English cucumbers than the darker, thicker-skinned ones we’re used to seeing. Persian cucumbers are about 6 inches long, with thin, textured skin that there’s no need to peel. They’re sweeter and crisper than common garden cucumbers, and have no developed seeds. They retain their water, so they stay cool tasting – one source I found said the interior can be as much as 20 degrees cooler than the skin. So they’re great in salads, and a terrific accompaniment to rich meats like lamb.


This particular salad is a traditional dish from Shiraz, a 4000-year old city and the sixth most populous in Iran. It’s light, fresh, crisp, and low-cal, and it takes almost no time to make.

Salad Shirazi

Adapted from Ellie on Food.com.

Serves 4

For the dressing:
4 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
1 garlic clove, minced
½ teaspoon honey
salt and pepper to taste

For the salad:
5 Persian cucumbers
1 pint (11-12 ounces) sweet cherry tomatoes
2 scallions, white and light green parts only
½ cup mint, chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced (or 1-2 tablespoons diced jalapeños from a jar. Yes, the KG is not too proud to get her jalapeños from a jar.)

Put all ingredients for the dressing into a jar and shake it well.

Slice the cucumbers lengthwise into quarters, then slice across in ⅜-inch cuts. [KG note: If this sounds too precious, just know that I thought ¼-inch cuts were too thin and ½-inch cuts too thick. So there.] Put them into a medium-sized salad bowl.

Slice the tomatoes into quarters, and add them to the bowl.

Slice the scallions thinly on a diagonal, and add them to the bowl. Add the mint and jalapeño, and pour the dressing over all. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Toss well, cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving. Now, wasn't that easy?