Carolyn and Paul down my street grow an amazing selection of vegetables,  and they have generously brought me Romaine lettuce, green onions, heirloom tomatoes and a magnificent specimen of golden beet. Maybe it is the sea view, but most likely their green thumbs  and Italian ancestry that produce such tasty vegetables.

Golden beet grown by Carolyn and Paul

All beets are good, but the golden beet is sweeter, it looks fantastic and it cooks a little bit faster than the traditional red beet. Of course, they can be boiled or steamed in the pressure cooker, but they come out best roasted.

They are very quick to prepare, but they cook for close to an hour so they are a good vegetable for a day when you have a roast in the oven. I peel them, remove tops and bottoms,  slice them, put them in a dish and sprinkle them with ground sage leaves, and baste them with a mixture of 1 tsp olive oil and butter, before cooking and every 15 minutes. Cooking time depends on the oven temperature for the meat and on the thickness of the slices. Smaller beets can be roasted whole.

Peeled and unpeeled Golden beets from the Root Cellar basted with sage or thyme butter

Note: Be sure to coat the peeled beets with butter  or olive oil right away or they will turn black.

PS: If you don’t know Paul and Carolyn, the Root Cellar sometimes has golden beets from the Saanich peninsula Vantreight Farm.