You can't beet this (!)

ADM*, can you believe I made a pun in the title? I couldn't get it out of my head and it was like when I'm dancing: the beet grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go, but then I a girl came by and pulled my hair—totally ruining my groove, right?—and I looked at my crew and said, "Let's go beet her up." And now maybe you're reading this, thinking: Mariana, if you were surprised that you made one pun, why go and make three? But things come in threes, Katie! It's out of my hands!

Now that that's out of my system, let's go back and remember how much I like beets: a lot. Remember I once made you a chocolate cake that had beets in it? And that was even before I knew how much I like them by themselves. Since then, I've posted a few times about beets and my love for them. We are now in prime beet season and I am all over it.

Want to know what else inspired me? This new city of mine, Pittsburgh, you know what it's full of? Chock full of? White people!—all different kinds, many of which have cuisines that also love beets. I'm not quite to the point where I want to eat borscht (mostly because I've never had it and kind of want to try some extremely good borscht before going down that path myself—so if anyone out there has borscht recommendations in the Iron City, let me know) but I'm tired of eating roasted beets. I had some goat cheese in my fridge, but didn't feel like making a salad. Then I thought that what I really wanted to do was eat some beets in a mushy form, but not really a pure beet puree (seems a lot like baby food) so I decided: why not make some mashed potatoes that are mostly beets and then put in some goat cheese?

And then it turned out the idea was good. So good, in fact, that I think I'm going to make this for Thanksgiving. Really, if the end product weren't so ridiculously and beautifully red, you might be hard-pressed to realize it's made with beets at all: it's rich and chunky like mashed potatoes, a little creamy, but with that nice earthy sweetness that beets provide, but not in an assertive way.

Mashed beets

10-12 small beets, or the equivalent of that with larger beets

2 medium baking potatoes

1/4-1/2 c. goat cheese

1/2 c. sour cream

salt & pepper

Steam or pressure cook the beets until they are very soft, maybe 30 minutes (longer if you're not pressure cooking). While that happens, boil the potatoes until they, too, are soft.

Once cool enough to handle, peel the beets. Cut the potatoes into chunks. Mash these things up together.

Stir in the goat cheese and sour cream until it's the sort of texture and taste you want. Also add the salt and pepper.

*¡Ay dios mio!