If you follow my blog, you may know my kids are Russian. Two of them (13 and 16) got together and made this great Borscht. When they first arrived from Russia, we did quite a bit to maintain their Russian culture like events, activities, and foods, but over time they lost interest for the most part – except for the food. They both like working in the kitchen, and this was their first time making Borscht.
It is not the extremely beet-intensive soup you might expect. If you get the red beets, the inside is mostly white with some red swirls, so I recommend them if you don’t want the dark purple of regular beats. It’s a delicious vegetable soup and super nutritious starting with the colorful beets, including the other vegetables, and the protein of the beans. We served it with a dollop of sour cream on top, and organic rosemary and olive oil artisan bread that they now sell at our local, small town Food Lion!
Hare are pictures of the sautéed vegetables, and the beet and potato mixture.
Borscht
3 medium beets, washed and trimmed
3 medium diced potatoes
4 T of avocado or hemp oil
1 C finely chopped sweet onion
1 grated carrot
1 finely chopped celery stalk
1/2 shredded head of cabbage
1 can pinto beans
2 bay leaves
6 C broth
1 can organic tomato paste
3 T lemon juice
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 t chopped fresh dill
Put three clean beets and 10 cups of water in a large soup pot. Cover and boil for 50 minutes. Add the chopped potatoes, and more water to cover the potatoes if it has evaporated. Boil another 10 minutes or until you can easily pierce the beets with a fork. Remove the beets with a slotted spoon. Add the shredded cabbage to the pot with the potatoes and continue boiling for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the onion, carrot, and celery until they are soft (8-10 minutes), then stir in the tomato paste.
Rub the skins off of the boiled beets and slice them into match sticks. Add them back to the potato pot. Add 6 cups of chicken broth, lemon juice, pepper, bay leaves, and can of beans (with their juice) to the pot. Add sautéed vegetable mixture to the pot along with chopped dill. Cook another 10 minutes.
