Beets Me!

So, many morn­ings I stop by Crema for my caf­feine fix. Rachel, the owner, yells at me all the time for post­ing pic­tures of my food to face­book. To be fair, Megan yells at me all the time for tak­ing pic­tures of my food because she’s usu­ally hun­gry and i’ve been known to delay din­ner with by set­ting up lights, etc. Anyway, Rachel and I both belong to a CSA, and have been hav­ing a hard time get­ting rid of our beets. So, this morn­ing, she chal­lenged me to do some­thing tasty and pretty with beets and I accepted. Only, there’s a prob­lem. See, I’ve never really liked beets much at all. I don’t know if it’s because my mom only fixed them a cer­tain way — the way she liked them — or if I just gen­uinely don’t like them. I like other root veg­gies, radishes, turnips, etc., so I should like the beet, right?

As soon as I left the cof­fee shop, I began think­ing of what I could do that would be tasty, pretty and some­what inno­v­a­tive. Remembering how much Megan and I loved our recent dis­cov­ery of roasted radishes, I decided to try that. By the time I left work (they let us out early for the 4^th, er, 2^nd of July) I was drool­ing from the thought of what i would make. I went straight to Trader Joe’s and got a some pro­sciutto and fresh Parmesan Reggiano speeded home to pre­heat the oven. Within an hour I ended up with a quite amaz­ing cre­ation that I would cer­tainly make again: Roasted Beet & Prosciutto Crostini with Shaved Parmesan Reggiano & Fresh Basil.

4 small to medium beets
2 table­spoons extra vir­gin olive oil
Freshly ground black pep­per (to taste)
Sea salt (to taste)
4 Slices Prosciutto
34º Natural Flavoured Crispbread wafers
Fresh Parmesan Reggiano
Fresh Basil

Preheat oven to 375º. Remove the skin from the beets and slice thin (no thicker than 1/8 inch). Toss sliced beets in olive oil to coat. Place beets on a cookie sheet, top with fresh ground black pep­per and sea salt Bake for 20 min­utes at 375º. Remove beets and let cool. Once cooled, wrap 2 slices of beets in 1/4 slice pro­sciutto and place on a wafer. Top with freshly shaved Parmesan Reggiano and thinly sliced basil and place on cookie sheet. Repeat for remain­ing beets. Place back in oven and bake for 15 min­utes at 375º.

Update: This recipe (and beet cook-off) was fea­tured on the Nashville Scene’s Food Blog.