I’m in love with beets. Earthy, brightly-colored, and vegetal, they represent many things I love in the world and are an amazing and versatile food. I’m not sure why I love beets so much (maybe they contain a mineral I am deficient in?) but I do. So when I saw that Maurizio from The Perfect Loaf (my favorite blog) made a beet sourdough recipe for Food52, I absolutely had to try it out.
I acquired some loose beets, scrubbed them, and proceeded with the recipe, baking the beets before I pureed and added them to the dough. Due to the bright color of the beets, mixing without gloves led my hands to become red. That was no problem with me though, it was only temporary and served as a reminder that I touched some radiant beets that left an imprint of their pigment on my skin. The beautiful ruby color was supposed to bake off in the oven, leaving a more subdued dough, but mine still turned out strikingly colorful!
The bread itself was delicious, and not gummy, which is something I usually struggle with in sourdough. The fact that it was so bright made it taste even better, as you could eat with your eyes before you dug in with your teeth. Lovely bread!
When I went back to college, I wanted to make beet bread again. I am a very ambitious person, so I just decided to make it and made it. I acquired beets from the local supermarket, and proceeded the same way I did the other bread. It was a multi-step process, as it always is, made more difficult by the fact I had to carry everything back and forth between my dorm room and the kitchen down the hall. I made it successfully though, although it was a different color than before. Different beets make such a difference I suppose!
I enjoyed my bread with some avocado, freshly ground black pepper, flaky sea salt, and cut-up honeycrisp apples. Perfection! This was the best meal (and most nutritious) I’d had in awhile, the dorm food often being less than nourishing.
