Beet pancakes

Sweet, earthy beets are used to add color, flavor, and sweetness in these moist pancakes made with a touch whole wheat flour. 

Hot and spicy refrigerator turnip pickles

Hot, spicy, tangy, and delicious -- these refrigerator turnip pickles add terrific flavor to any meal or relish tray!

Kohlrabi and radish slaw

A crisp and refreshing slaw made with kohlrabi, radishes, carrots, and a sweet poppy seed dressing. This slaw is a delicious summer side dish and perfect with cookouts and picnics.

20 Beet Recipes You Simply Can't Beat

Photos courtesy of Day in the Life on the Farm, Savory Moments, House of Nash Eats, and That Recipe.

A collection of 20 beet recipes you simply can't beat! This time of year beets are popping up in people's CSA baskets, farmers' markets, and there are so many ways to enjoy them other than simply steaming.

Quick pickled radishes

Bright, colorful, and crisp, these quick pickled radishes are an easy way to liven up any salad or sandwich. And, aside from adding lovely color to a relish tray, they would even be terrific in a burrito or a taco.

Carrot pie

Sweet and delicious carrot pie is a delicious dessert for both spring and fall, or anytime you want a unique pie for your family.

Creamy beet and apple salad

Disclosure: This post is sponsored on behalf of #appleweek. Our generous sponsors, Swiss Diamond, Envy Apples, Imperial Sugar, Nordic Ware, Rodelle Vanilla, Flahavan's Irish Oatmeal, Nairn's and The Spice House have provided us with products for recipe creation and a giveaway for our readers. As always, all opinions are my own.

 

A creamy and tangy dressing coats these crisp, sweet apples and soft, earthy beets for a delicious fall side dish. 

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#AppleWeek is still going strong and I hope you have been enjoying everyone's amazing recipe contributions this week! I know I am! Hopefully you have found at least a couple, if not several, new apple recipes to try out this fall. Today I have a fall side dish that is super easy and also so tasty. I have to say that even my toddlers scarfed down this salad - it's that good. 

I received some spices from The Spice House for #AppleWeek and one that I was especially excited to try was ground caraway. I've used the whole seeds several times, but never a ground version. I have been wanting to make a beet and apple salad ever since I tried one years ago and I thought caraway would be a lovely compliment to the flavors. I was correct - the flavors in this salad all go together so nicely and the contrast between the sweet crispy apples, the soft earthy beets, and the cool and tangy dressing go so well together. 

We had this salad along with come cranberry chicken sausage and potato pierogi for a perfect autumn meal. This recipe will serve about 4 people as a side dish.

Roasted balsamic radishes

Radishes roasted in olive oil, salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar are a tasty way to change-up your radish eating routine! 

Warm beets with horseradish and dill sour cream

Sometimes I feel like I don't post enough side dishes, with the most probably being around holidays. 

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I'm trying to make more vegetable side dishes so we rely less on grains and I also just like to make them more interesting in the hopes that people will be encouraged to give some more vegetables a try. I found some really pretty golden beets the other day with their greens in good shape and found two red ones kicking around in the fridge and decided to use them to make a warm salad. 

I really enjoy golden beets - they are so much sweeter than red beets and they were definitely the star of this dish. Paired with their sauteed greens and topped simply with the sour cream, horseradish, and fresh dill - these beets were tasty and perfect to go along side a grilled skirt steak for dinner. If you don't have the greens, that's OK, too. 

They aren't necessary, but if you have them, you definitely don't want to waste them. Beet greens are slightly spicy and different from the taste of the root. I highly recommend giving them a try if you haven't already.

Carrot-ginger soup

A warm and creamy soup with a hint of sweetness from carrots makes a delicious and comforting winter time meal.

 

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Things have been quiet here on my blog recently.... That's because I was on vacation for a while. A completely unplugged vacation. I don't have a smartphone and didn't take the laptop - and, honestly, it was wonderful. It was wonderful to get away from the constant "chatter" of the online world. 

I slept a lot. I sat in the sun. I read an entire book. We looked at a lot of birds. And, my favorite part, we visited manatees. Those gray shadows are manatees that we visited in Central Florida at a state park where the manatees over-winter. They were so beautiful.

West African chicken and peanut stew

 

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I don't like to complain about the weather, but 55 to 60 degrees in December with rain? Really? We got our Christmas tree the other day and it was pouring rain. I'm sitting here with the window wide open. 

We live in Buffalo, NY folks - the place where everyone thinks has crazy amounts of snow. Last winter I wasn't even able to use my snowshoes once. It's weird and makes it really difficult to get into the Christmas mood! We are used to snow and cold. I don't want any blizzards or anything, but I also feel like it's spring.... It makes baking cookies or knitting gifts feel.... I don't know..... just not right....

It also makes dinners a little more difficult. Usually we are craving stews, soups, and other cold-weather dishes, but not so much when it is this warm. But, that's not going to stop me from making wintery meals. I'm hopeful that we will see some winter this year. It's still early..... and, I'm hopeful that we will have at least a covering of snow as we get closer to the holidays. 

This stew is a stick-to-your-bones kind of meal that is perfect for a cold evening. I've been wanting to make a version of this dish for quite a while and finally used this recipe to do so (I modified it slightly). The combination of ingredients sound strange -- the flavor is unlike anything I've eaten before, but after a couple bites, we both agreed that we liked it a lot! 

This dish will easily serve four hungry people. It's a simple dish to put together, but does take some time to simmer. It's a perfect stew to warm you up after coming in from the cold (if it's cold where you are).

Turnip and Yukon gold potato gratin

In my experience, most people don't get very excited about turnips. But, I'm not one of those people. In fact, I get pretty excited for all root vegetables and root vegetable season. 

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Look at those lovely large pink turnips in the photo (I used much smaller ones in this dish). This time of year the food blogs are filled with recipes featuring pumpkins, other winter squash, and apples - rightfully so... but you don't see as many featuring turnips, rutabagas, beets, celeriac, parsnips, radishes, etc..

I almost start to squeal with delight when we are walking through the farmers' market and cute little white baby turnips begin to make their first appearance. I dream of the day when we have land for a garden and in my mind, my garden is almost exclusively full of root vegetables, winter squash, and herbs.

I never even had turnips until the first Thanksgiving I was dating my husband. We were going to a dinner at his aunt and uncle's and she told him that we could "bring the turnips." I was in shock. Tunips?! I had never even tasted a turnip before, let alone cooked one. 

So, I searched the internet and found a recipe for roasted turnips. After searching the grocery store for turnips, I bought some, made the recipe, and hoped for the best. Well, they were delicious and everyone enjoyed them. Now that I make Thanksgiving dinner, I almost always have a turnip side dish to try to convert more people to turnip lovers.  

This gratin is lightened up because it doesn't contain any cream - although this dish is probably still a little heavy for a Thanksgiving side dish for me.

Borscht

Honestly, I didn't become friends with beets until the past few years. As a kid, I couldn't stand them...as an adult, I love them.  

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We were given a large bag of beets and for some reason I became determined that I must make borscht. Why? I'm not sure - other than the fact that I like to try cuisine from all over the world. I've never eaten borscht, but for some reason I felt like it was my duty to turn some of these beets into it. There seem to be numerous spellings of borscht and even more ways that you can make it. 

I read a bunch of different recipes, surveyed my fridge and freezer, and this is what I came up with. I must say that both my husband and I were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed it.

This recipe is a bit time consuming, but it's worth it to get the best flavored broth and to get a lot of the excess fat skimmed off the top. This photo is from right before we ate it, but, like pretty much any soup or stew, it gets better the next day. 

It's a nice meal for these cold and rainy days we are having and it will easily serve four to six people.

Carrot cake pancakes

Do you remember at the end of 2011 when I promised myself I'd make more pancakes in 2012? 

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I've been toying around with the idea of creating a carrot pancake that has the flavors of carrot cake. Then I decided to search the net and I realized that I'm far from the first person to ever think of doing this. There are a lot of carrot cake pancake recipes floating around out there. 

This recipe turned out pretty great. I really liked that they were packed full of carrots, too. There are more carrots than flour in this recipe, which makes me feel better about eating a stack of them for breakfast.

The topping for these pancakes are what make them extra special and really reminded me of carrot cake. So don't skimp on making the cream cheese topping - it's easy and it's delicious! This recipe will serve three to four people. 

Orange and honey roasted rutabaga

Up until this I had never eaten a rutabaga anyway except for mashed/pureed with potatoes. I am pretty sure that up until last fall, I had never eaten a rutabaga in my life though. 

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So, I decided to try a new way to make this root vegetable into a side dish. Roasting is pretty much the best way to make almost all vegetables, so I figured that it would be worth a shot.Since rutabagas have a bit of a spicy flavor (similar but more subtle than a turnip), I thought that a sweet flavor would go nicely with it. I decided to keep it simple and roast the rutabaga chunks with some honey and orange juice. 

It was a good choice and the slight tang from the orange juice and sweetness from the honey paired very nicely with the rutabaga - it didn't overpower the vegetable, but rather complimented it.

I used one medium rutabaga, which I thought would make a side for at least three people, but my husband and I ate it all! I think that this would make a lovely and simple Thanksgiving side dish and a tasty way to introduce people to rutagbagas, which don't tend to be a very popular or common vegetable in my experience. 

You can easily double or triple this recipe and it is very forgiving. So if you haven't already made friends with the rutabaga, go for it! 

Maple-mustard roasted baby turnips

Week 7 of Fall Fest is here and this week we celebrate root vegetables. I've really been discovering more root vegetables this year with our local farmer's market. 

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Turnips have been one of my favorite discoveries, and, in particular, baby turnips. Aside from being cute, they are super tasty! The baby ones are slightly spicy, but also sweet and juicy. My favorite way of making them so far is this recipe. 

It's really simple and a great fall side dish (it would also make a good Thanksgiving side dish). I'm always looking for new and interesting vegetable side dishes and this one is high on that list.