Sunday, September 30, 2012

Ruby Red Vegetarian Borscht- who needs beef?

One of my fall standbys...  Beets, beautiful red, earthy beets...  This hearty soup gets all of its colour from beets.  You'll fall in love with its sweet and sour flavour.  The sour flavour comes from the red wine vinegar.

It will benefit from being made a day ahead.  Serve it with freshly boiled potatoes and/or hard boiled eggs and sour cream and fresh dill, with a side of hearty, sour, dark Russian bread.  Here's my recipe...

My New Favourite Condiment- Homemade Savoury Red Onion Relish

Trouble Maker is a local Okanagan red wine- hey, I liked the name and the label and the fact that it provides a fruity, deep, rich wine flavour to the caramelized red onions- you can use your favourite red...

Name yours after the wine you choose!

Beet Wellington- yep it's beet not beef!

Georgeous, flavourful, earthy red beets replace the beef in this recipe.  I want to pack it with flavour, lots of it while keeping some of the other traditional components.  So, to the beet slices, I'm adding a mushroom duxelle made with four types of mushrooms (portobello, cremini, oyster and shitake) and toasted walnuts. This year, I made a great red onion relish which I will use in this recipe.  It will add a deep, red wine caramelized onion "layer" to the Wellington.  Here's the recipe to serve four: