Last weekend I went out to dinner with some girlfriends, it was my first evening out on the town since Kaz was born and it was glorious.

There was wine.

There was dessert.

There were no children.

There was beet soup.

When perusing the menu for our first course, I couldn’t decide between the Beet and Ginger Soup with Scallions and the Beet Salad with arugula, feta, orange & hazelnut vinaigrette.  Beet salad eventually won my favor in the battle of the beets – but fortunately a fellow beet loving friend ordered the soup and let me sample it.

Oh yes, Beet and Ginger Soup.  You will be mine.  Except I’m going to have to make you myself because I already ordered my salad.

So I’m not sure you’ll get excited about this soup unless you’re a beet lover.  I’ve only discovered the awesomeness of beets within the last 5 years or so, I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life NOT eating beets!

Fortunately, this soup is helping me make up for lost time.

If you aren’t a beet lover, I can see that beet soup might be a bit scary at first. One wrong move and we could be re-enacting a scene from Carrie.  It would definitely be scary to waste this delicious soup as fake blood.

Don’t be scared, it’s good.  Scary good.  I couldn’t wait to go home and try my hand at it.

With beet soup on the brain, I bought two bunches of beets this week instead of just one.

There’s that pesky baby dragging out all my plastic dishes again. But if it means I can make beet soup in relative peace? Have at it, kid.

Beet and Ginger Soup with Scallions

serves 4 – 5

print this recipe!

Ingredients

10 small beets (or 5 large beets), roasted or steamed, skins removed
2 – 3 Tbsp coconut or olive oil
1 – 2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 bunch of scallions, sliced
1 – 2 Tbsp grated ginger
1 – 2 Tbsp lemon juice (or the juice from half a lemon)
16 oz of water
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Prepare beets as desired, removing skins once cool. In a large soup pot, saute garlic, ginger and scallions in oil until soft. Add peeled, sliced beets and cook together for a few minutes before adding water, lemon and salt and pepper.  Bring soup to a gentle boil and then reduce to a simmer, for about 10 minutes. Blend all ingredients with your blender, food processor or immersion blender. Serve immediately, garnish with scallions.

First things first, you’ve got to cook your beets.  You could steam them or you could roast them – I went with roasting because of the quantity.  Steaming is faster, but roasting definitely is easier.  Plus roasting beets heats up my kitchen quite nicely.

Trimmed and washed and then individually wrapped in foil, baked at 400 for about an hour. You’ll know they’re done when you can easily stick a fork into them. Once cool they peel easily, their little skins slip right off in your fingers.

While your beets are cooling, you can get started on your ginger, scallions and garlic prep.   You can grate your ginger with a serrated knife – cut the skin off the ginger root and then scrape your knife against the flesh until you’ve got about a tablespoon or so of ginger mush.

Cut the hairy bits off your scallions and slice until you get deep into the greenery.

In a large, deep pan, saute your garlic, ginger and scallions in your oil of choice until soft.  While the vegetables are cooking, peel those beets!  Add peeled, sliced beets to your soup pot and allow your beets to saute for a few minutes with other vegetables.

Add 16 oz of water, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.  Puree all vegetables in blender, food processor or with an immersion blender.

I practice Knife Conservation.

(i.e., I used the same knife to cut my lemon that I used to cut my beets.)

Time to eat!  Beet and Ginger soup for lunch, baby!  (Or dinner.  Or breakfast.  Whatev.)

Served with some leftover grilled salmon,

along side my little plastic dishes cupboard adjuster.

No beets for you just yet, little dude.  Maybe we’ll try them around 8 to 10 months.

Just peas for today.

(He was cool with with it.)

There are a couple of do’s and don’ts worth mentioning here.

DO

Garnish with scallions! I did this for the photo, but it was actually great addition!

DON’T

Drop your camera in this soup.  (I came |thisclose| to sending my camera lens first into this bowl of magenta.  No joke.)

DO

Consider roasting beets more often.  I forgot how rich and flavorful they are when they are cooked this way!

DON’T

Eat this soup wearing a white dress or white tuxedo.  At least I wouldn’t.

DO

Expect that any older children you might have milling about to say “what’s THAT?!” in unabashed horror when they see it.

DON’T

Freak out when you pee is red later today or tomorrow.

(Unless you didn’t eat beets. In that case I do recommend seeing someone about red pee.)

Beet soup.  Savory?  Or scary?  We totally loved this, I hope you do too!