Christmas: Caramelized Beets

Beets are a very common ingredient during Christmas time in many countries around the world. In Poland we eat a lot of beets in form of soups, salads, juices, and even main dishes.

In this dish we are using leftover beets from barszcz/borscht/beet soup or whatever else you might call it.

Food waste has always been on my mind as I grew up during communism time and back then food was very valuable, many ingredients were scarce which contributed to our economical living.  We used almost as much as possible of each ingredient throwing out very little. This type of economical cooking is quite evident in our Traditional Christmas dishes. We use leftovers from one dish in another - vegetable salad is a great example of it.  

Important note: when cooking beets do not cover them as they will become brown. Even though I knew that I put them in the oven to reheat - the result were delicious beets but they did not look too appetizing so no photo this time.

Ingredients:

0.5 large onion, sliced very thinly

2 pressed garlic cloves

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

3 tbsp brown sugar

1 glass red wine

around 300 g of beets left over from Barszcz/Borsch

2 tbsp butter

1. Sauté onion and garlic with butter for about 3-4 minutes.

2. Add vinegar, sugar. Cook for another 2 minutes, then add wine. Cook on a low heat, gas mark 2.2 for 20-30 minutes.

3. Add beets, glaze them in the onion and wine reduction. Cook on gas mark 2.2 for 15 minutes.

4. Serve warm.

5. Enjoy!

6. If you made this recipe share it and tag it @healthywithjoanna

Middle Eastern Flavours: Chicken Marrakech

I decided to experiment a little with Middle Eastern flavours as they combine some of my favourite ingredients - chickpeas, lamb, cilantro and number of spices such as cumin, turmeric, cinnamon.
Chicken Marrakech is one of the popular dishes and is very easy to make. It has chickpeas in it so it is a major plus for me! I looked at a number of recipes for this dish and created my own version of what I felt would work best.
I just love chickpeas, it is my perfect main dish as well as a perfect snack; I cannot go long without chickpeas on my plate.
My son loved this dish. Judging by the quantity of the food he ate today, it is probably one of his favourites.

Serves: 6


Ingredients
5 chicken thighs (I prefer using thighs in dishes like that as they have more fat, hence add more flavour than chicken breasts)
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled
3 medium carrots, peeled
1c chickpeas, cooked (you can use canned if you want; I always cook it myself as it is very easy to do and is a lot cheaper)
1 medium onion
2 garlic cloves
1t cinnamon
1T turmeric
1T cumin
1t black pepper
1 red chilli, deseeded
500g canned diced tomatoes
2T tomato paste
fresh cilantro, chopped
1T olive oil
1c water

1. Chop sweet potatoes and carrots. Set them aside.
2. Roughly chop onion and garlic; then puree it.
3. Heat oil in the pan and add onion and garlic paste. Cook for 3-5  minutes on a medium heat.
4. In a meantime prepare chicken by cutting it into bite size pieces.
5. Add spices to the pan with onion and garlic paste and cook for another 3 minutes.
6. Add chicken to the pan and cook for 5-7 minutes until chicken is well coated.
7. Add chopped sweet potatoes, carrots, chickpeas, and tomatoes and tomato paste. Add a cup of water. Mix well and let it cook for about 40 minutes.
8. Once it is cooked serve with generous amount of chopped cilantro.
9. Enjoy!