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!

Bolillos

Hey, my friend, it has been a long time! I have missed you and things have changed! #1: I no longer live in Tucson! #2: You should address all things to me as Mariana, Esquire! #3: I live in Pittsburgh, PA! This is all a lot to get used to.

First, here are my new cooking digs:

I haven't been cooking very much...but your zombie post reminded me that this is something I like to do. So let me set this post up for you: before I left Tucson I spent a lot of time worrying about how much I was going to miss it—or, really, how much I would miss my life there. It turns out that I spent so much time worrying about how much I was going to miss it that I wore myself out and haven't missed it too bad at all. But, I still had enough worry in me to worry about missing arguably the best and most Tucson day of the year: the All Souls' Procession. People painted like skeletons, walking down the street, remembering people who have passed away, enjoying being alive, and in nice weather. This is generally what Pittsburgh looks like:

Luckily, through mutual friends, I've found some Tucson people here and, to stave off our sadness, nostalgia, and impending winter, we had ourselves a nice dinner of green chile stew and bolillo rolls. It kind of worked at making me feel better. You know what's more helpful than stew and rolls, though? The fact that Pittsburgh's rad!

Bolillo rolls

2 c. water

1 1/2 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. salt

2 tbsp. butter, melted

1 package yeast

5 1/2-6 c. white flour

Make those 2 cups of water warm, then dissolve in the sugar, salt, and butter. Let the water cool to under 110º, then dissolve in the yeast. Let it sit a minute or two, sniff it and make sure it smells yeasty so that you know your yeast is alive.

Stir the yeasty water into 5 cups of flour until the dough is stiff. On a floured surface, knead the dough 5-8 minutes, until it stops being sticky and, when you poke it with your finger, the hole doesn't immediately disappear. Put the kneaded dough into a bowl, coat it with a little bit of oil on top, cover with a cloth or plastic wrap in a warmish place, and let it rise 1 1/2-2 hours.

At the end of the first rise, punch it! Now form as many rolls as you want/can, in a sort of oblong shape.

Let the rolls rise until doubled in size, about 35 minutes.

Heat your oven to 375º. Cut a slit in those rolls and maybe brush them with some melted butter.

Bake 25-40 minutes, depending on the size of the roll. Eat some spicy soup and think of home!