Introducing Thirsty Beets!

As you might have read in previous posts or in our story about Uprooted Farms, you would know that our favourite vegetable is the humble beet. Why you might ask? Well it might not be just one, but many reasons we consider the beet, King. I would highlight the fact that it tastes like wholesome earthy goodness. It tastes like earth and what can be more comforting than sweet earthiness? It might not be a taste for everyone, but the ones who understand my commentary, well they get it. To quote Tom Robbins, who perhaps stated it the best: "The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Slavic peoples get their physical characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering inquietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets.The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip... "

Before reading that quote, I never considered tomatoes lusty.. until now.

Up until this year, I admittedly have not had a regular dose of beets in my diet. I rarely had beets, despite thoroughly enjoying them the odd time roasted at home or ordering them at a trendy restaurant. That changed abruptly when we came up with the idea of Uprooted. We began experimenting with our favourite little serious root, looking for ways to add value to a vegetable that is basically under-utilized. Beets are not the most popular vegetable, and we realized we needed to make it more accessible and convenient for our ruby red friends to be eaten, and most importantly, appreciated. So Ben decided beet chips were an experiment we had to perfect.

It first began by actually baking beet slices in the oven at a low temperature for a few hours. Miserable failure. They weren't getting crunchy, they were chewy and limp and what was crunchy was burn (burnt beets are not tasty). All of which are not ideal characteristics for a chip. Scrunch that one up and move on to the next idea!

We then thought using a dehydrator to remove all of the water in the beet would work perfectly. We purchased our first tiny dehydrator and got to work slicing our beets. When they finally came out, they were chewy. Dry, chewy beet slices. Although much more appealing and a lot less burnt tasting, they were still not the crunchy chip we desired.

Sigh.

Back to the drawing board. 

We had a deep fryer but we figured this has been done, and we wanted to improve on what we had making a snack that was not only delicious, but nutritious!

So Ben decided after dehydrating a batch, to throw them in the oven and roast them. Utter.Sweet.Baby.Jesus. They were perfection. Like addicting little crunchy snacks. I ate so much, my pee was rather pink for days. If you could overdose on beets, I would have done it. 

These crunchy snacks were a gem for all beet lovers. We knew we had to share them. Our taste testing victims? Ben's gym members. And was it a hit? Most definitely! We even got non-beet lovers to eat them and give us a nod of approval. 

So did we stop there?

Nope.

Ben decided to hickory smoke a batch before dehydrating the slices and. Drop.THE.MICROPHONE. It was a smoky beet chip! Seriously. Slap your knee and curse your mother, it was that good. Don't believe me? Don't just take my word for it, it would do it injustice. 

We are now upgraded to a commercial grade dehydrator and are taking orders for both our Classic Vancouver Island Sea Salted Thirsty Beets, and our Hickory Smoked Salted Thirsty Beets.

As we perfect our procedure and methods, we are planning to take these treats to other vendors who might be interested in supplying these to their costumers, while we also take individual orders from friends and family. 

Of course our farm will not be able to hold up the beet supply for our needs this year (next year on the farm though, beets for days), so this year we will be using Canadian farm produced beets to create our Thirsty Beets. The salt we use for seasoning is purely Canadian, from the Vancouver Island Sea Salt Company. 2 Ingredients,100% Canadian, local, healthy and delicious. Could you ask for anything more? Hmmm.. Perhaps a second bag?

Give us a shout if you are interested in sampling or ordering some Thirsty Beets! We hope that we can hit a local farmer's market this summer to supply our friends and family with some Thirsty Beets samples and orders! The moral of the story: Among a few failures, we discover deliciousness. And isn't that what life is all about anyways? What you are having for your next meal? I can't speak for yourself, but food has to make you feel something. Like serious beets. 

Until the next experiment or adventure, my friends,

Kait