Our beets have done great this year and we’re selling most of them to the restaurants in town. The Holly Hill Inn used them to make a delicious pureed borcht and they’re now making a salad with the beets that include Albino (white) beets, golden beets, striped, and red beets. My favorite way to prepare them, which really concentrates the flavor, is roasting them in a hot oven.

Here’s a quick and dirty recipe: Honest Farm Roasted Beets

Serves 4

2 pounds beets, trimmed and halved (about 6 smallish beets)
2 tablespoons olive oil 1 teaspoon whole coriander seed (optional)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Lay 2 long sheets of aluminum foil (one lengthwise, one crosswise) on a large baking sheet. Place the beets, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, coriander seed, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in the foil and seal the foil into a kind of tent over the beets. Roast until the beets are tender when pierced with a knife, about 40 minutes. When they are cool enough to handle, remove the skins and slice or dice the beets.

2. Place the beets in a medium-sized mixing bowl and toss with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Serve warm or chilled.

Enjoy!

You can start a compost pile with as little as 4 stakes and some chicken wire attached to it to form a low tech bin (I recommend putting chicken wire on top to keep the critters at bay) but there’s a whole world of composters out there, large and small, from which to choose. And a big range in prices, too.

We have a growing pile that will be turned with a Bobcat later on. There is a site, if you can believe it, called http://www.composters.com/.

I like the big totating tumblers if you have room in your backyard (and the cash) but there are smaller versions as well: http://www.composters.com/docs/tumblers_1.html#oct

These tumblers cook the compost a lot faster and the tumbling action helps break down the organic matter into a very fine mixture that you can use more quickly (instead of having to wait as much as 2 years).

Good luck and remember, keep your compost pile vegetarian.

For reading every word you deserve one of the big fat juicy tomatoes we’ll be selling next Saturday. Look forward to seeing you!