Pickled Beets

Beets are a weekly ritual around here. Usually we boil them and toss them in a sweet sour vinaigrette and keep them in the refrigerator to eat all week. The vinegar in the dressing “pickles” the beets, helping them last longer in the fridge.

Many pickled beets I find are much too vinegary, hiding rather than enhancing the naturally sweet flavor of the beets. This recipe is my mother’s approach to preparing the beets, using cider vinegar balanced with a little sugar (you could also just use balsamic), along with olive oil and some dry mustard. We love it! The vinaigrette complements the sweetness of the beets without overpowering them.

Do you love beets? Check out all of our beet recipes here.

Updated from the recipe archive, first posted in 2006.

Pickled Beets Recipe

This recipe uses a basic vinaigrette, heavy on the vinegar to offset the sweetness of the beets, but you could easily use any favorite vinaigrette. A little olive oil with salt, pepper, and balsamic is lovely. Try sprinkling a little orange zest in with the beets, or adding some lime, lemon, or orange juice to the dressing for a citrus note.

Ingredients

• 1 bunch (4 or 5) beets
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• Salt and pepper

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Panaché

Hello my friends, you are just going to have to trust me on this one. The first time I had a panaché (pan nah SHAY), a popular French drink that is simply a combination of a light beer and a citrusy soda like 7-Up, it was in Orlando at Disney World, on a typically hot May afternoon.

My friends and I had been wandering the park for hours. My legs were tired. I was tired. If I had been 3 years old I would have been on the verge of meltdown requiring a nap or time-out.

My dear French sweetheart found us a table in the shade and ventured off, returning with a platter of glasses filled with ice, a few beers, and a few cans of 7-Up. Now, if the thought of mixing 7-Up with beer makes your head want to explode, you’re not alone.

But we were tired, our resistance down. We had a taste and with it, every reservation vanished. I can now tell you that on a hot day, there is no better drink in the world.

Why? Because a panaché is truly refreshing. Not cloying sweet like straight soda. You can drink several glasses before you even notice that there is a touch of alcohol from the beer in it. In France it isn’t usually served with ice (in general ice in drinks isn’t as popular in Europe as it is here) but in my Frenchman’s opinion, it’s even better with ice, and I agree.

I was going to wait until Bastille Day to share this with you, it being a French favorite and all. But here we are, it’s 104°F (40°C) in Sacramento today, and is forecast to be well over 100°F all week. Our friends in Arizona have it even worse (117° in Phoenix, yikes!). Wherever you are, stay cool. And try a panaché!

Update: Many readers have commented that this combination is known as a “Shandy” in many parts of the English speaking world, and goes by other names in other countries as well. ~Elise 

Panaché Recipe

The proportions can vary from 1/4 beer to a 1/2 beer, with the rest being 7-up or Sprite. Just make sure you use a light (not dark) beer. It doesn't have to be a "lite" beer, though that would work too.

Ingredients

• 1 part beer (not a dark beer, but a light one, like a Bud, or Miller)
• 1 to 3 parts 7-up or Sprite

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Quick Beef Stew with Mushrooms and White Beans

Hmm. “Quick stew” is somewhat of an oxymoron isn’t it? Most stews are braised in plenty of liquid for long slow cooking. This stew is barely “stewed”, and the main reason it comes together so quickly is that you are using top sirloin for the beef, a much more tender cut of beef than chuck, which is what is usually used in stews and requires long slow cooking to become tender.

This recipe is updated from one I posted several years ago, with slight modifications to extract more flavor from the ingredients given the short cooking time. The revised stew has passed the parent approval test, with two thumbs up from both mom and dad. Enjoy!

Quick Beef Stew with Mushrooms and White Beans Recipe

Ingredients

• 4-5 ounces of cremini or button mushrooms, quartered
• 4-5 ounces some other fresh mushroom, shiitake, oyster, chanterelle, etc.
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless beef top sirloin steak, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt
• 2 medium carrots, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
• 1 medium onion, cut lengthwise into thin wedges
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced thin
• 1/2 cup dry white or red wine (can sub beef or chicken broth)
• 16-ounce can small white beans (such as Great Northern, navy, or cannellini), rinsed, drained
• 14 1/2-ounce can diced tomatoes with garlic and onion, undrained
• Chopped parsley for garnish

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Traditional Roast Beef Hash

Hash is a great way to use up leftover cooked meat. We tend to use roast beef, but leftover pot roast or other meats could easily be used.

What really helps making an excellent hash is an old fashioned meat grinder.

If you don’t have a meat grinder, you can use the grinder attachment of a KitchenAid. You can also chop the meat, potatoes, and onions very fine with a knife, though the resulting consistency will not be as blended as what you can achieve with a meat grinder.

Traditional Roast Beef Hash Recipe

To make the hash you want approximately equal amounts of cooked beef, raw potato, and onion. The amounts listed here in the ingredient list are approximations. Scale up or down as needed.

A grinder makes a big difference here because of the way it grinds the beef into the onions and potatoes.

Ingredients

• 2 cups roughly chopped cooked roast beef or pot roast beef
• 1 large russett or 2 smaller yukon gold potatoes, peeled and quartered
• 1 large onion, peeled and quartered
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Ketchup

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Grilled Marinated Flank Steak

Flank steak is a lean, somewhat tough but flavorful cut of beef that benefits from the tenderizing effects of a marinade. It is best cooked medium rare and thinly sliced at an angle across the grain of the meat.

Prepared this way, marinated, cooked quickly at high heat, thinly sliced, flank steak practically melts in your mouth. This recipe calls for grilling the steak, but if you don’t have a grill, you can prepare the steak on a large cast iron frying pan as well.

For more Southwestern flavors, see our carne asada recipe. Do you have a favorite flank steak marinade? or grilling trick for flank steak? If so, please let us know in the comments.

Grilled Marinated Flank Steak Recipe

My mother likes to score the flank steak with 1/4-inch cuts about an inch apart across the grain of the steak before cooking. It helps the marinade penetrate more deeply and the steak cook more quickly.

Ingredients

Marinade Ingredients

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Other ingredients

• 2 pounds flank steak

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Mexican Three Bean Salad

Do you love a good three bean salad, you know, the kind with a sweet vinegary dressing? I do. It’s sort of that last minute pantry item type of dish that is quick and wonderfully filling when you are hungry.

This Mexican-inspired bean salad is a riff off the standard. It’s not really Mexican per se, but uses typical South-of-the-border ingredients such as crumbly Cotija cheese, black beans and pinto beans, jalapeño peppers, cilantro and a sweet dressing made with sugar and lime juice. All items that we happened to have in our pantry or fridge this week. So good!

Mexican Three Bean Salad Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 pound green beans
• Salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 green onions, sliced
• 1-2 jalapenos, seeded, chopped
• 1 large garlic clove, sliced thin
• 1 cup Cotija queso seco cheese, crumbled (can sub feta)
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/3 cup lime juice
• 1/4 cup sugar

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Easy Tuscan Bean Soup

The best bean soups have a lived-in quality, as if they have been simmering on the back burner for hours, just waiting for you.

You can achieve this by cooking the dried beans from scratch, of course. Or you can skip the long simmer and pop open a can!

Bean soups have the distinct advantage of tasting terrific either way. Today’s soup uses canned beans to make a 30-minute meal that tastes like it took all day.

When you start this soup, sauté vegetables first to give the soup lots of flavor. Let carrots, onion, and celery cook with sprigs of oregano, then stir in the beans and chicken stock.

To make sure your soup has that appealing “simmered all day” quality when using canned beans, just mash some of the beans before they go into the pot. This will give your soup the slightly distressed texture that a good bean soup should have.

Simmer the soup briefly, then add baby kale or spinach for their pretty green color and texture. Parmesan toasts are an easy side dish to make while the soup is simmering and they give your dinner plenty of crunch.

Sprinkle the bowls with olive oil and more Parmesan. You’re done in less than half an hour, but your soup will taste like an afternoon’s effort.

Easy Tuscan Bean Soup Recipe

If eating gluten-free, use gluten-free bread for the Parmesan toasts, or replace the toasts with another gluten-free side dish.

Ingredients

For the soup:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 medium carrots, thickly sliced
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 3 sprigs fresh oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Black pepper, to taste
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) cannellini beans or other small white beans, drained and rinsed
• 5 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 4 cups baby kale or baby spinach, stems removed if tough
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano, for garnish
• Olive oil, to serve
• Extra grated Parmesan, to serve

For the parmesan toasts:

• 1/2 baguette, thinly sliced
• Olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

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