A colorful and yummy beet dip. Photo
courtesy Dole.com.

We love beets in every form: baked, Harvard, pickled, beet ravioli, steamed beats, soup (borscht is Russian beet soup), in gourmet appetizer recipes, in green salads, with goat cheese and endive…even beet ice cream (substitute beets in a strawberry ice cream recipe) and beet cake (food trivia: the original—and best—red velvet cake recipes got their red hue from beets, not food color).

You can even enjoy beet juice in cocktails: a beet Martini or this beet Mojito, for example.

Now, here’s another way to enjoy beets: as a dip with crudités or a bread spread. The recipe is courtesy Dole Foods.

It’s a beautiful color for Easter or any other festive occasion.

Ingredients

1. PULSE beets in bowl or food processor wuth scallion and spinach, until finely chopped.

2. ADD cream cheese, lemon juice and salt, and process until well-blended, leaving some texture in dip. Transfer to bowl and stir in chives.

3. SERVE as a dip with crudités or as a spread on toasted french bread.

Why clay? It represents the mortar that Israelites used while enslaved as builders by the Egyptians.

A kind of apple chutney of sorts, charoset is eaten during the seder with matzoh and fresh-grated horseradish. It is delightful as an accompaniment to roasted meats at any time; we enjoy it year-round on matzoh or toast.

This recipe, which you can whip up in 15 minutes, is courtesy of Bee Raw Honey, a purveyor of artisan honeys. They recommend their orange blossom honey in this recipe; but you can use what you have on hand.

You can enjoy the charoset immediately, but ideally let it rest in the fridge for an hour or longer to allow the flavors to meld. The yield is approximately 4 cups.

CHAROSET RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. HEAT oven to 350°F. Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Toss occasionally and watch carefully; remove the walnuts when they are fragrant. Let cool, then roughly chop.

2. COMBINE the lemon juice, wine, honey, lemon zest, cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon salt.

3. MIX the apples and walnuts with the liquid mixture in a large bowl; toss to combine. Chill until ready to serve.

Among many studies, the largest one, conducted by Harvard University, proved that the more red meat you eat, the greater your risk of dying and of developing heart disease, cancer and diabetes.* And the more animals raised to meet the insatiable appetite for red meat, the more environmental pollution.

Red meat is:

Place a smaller piece of red meat on a larger bed of grains or vegetables. Photo courtesy MalaysianKitchenNYC.com.

 
Want to know more? Read this article.

But there is a compromise, reflected in today’s tip:

Just cut down on your portion size. Limit the portion to three ounces—three slices—and fill out the dish with grains or vegetables.

Any beef dish can be turned into a smaller portion—and by using herbs, spices and other seasonings, the meat can be even more flavorful.

Place a couple of slices of broiled red meat or a large chunk of stewed meat atop barley, beans, brown rice, mashed cauliflower or potatoes, quinoa, a rice or pasta salad, vegetable purée (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower or other favorite) or other base. Another easy way to use less meat is in a veggie-laden stir-fry.

Look for recipes that don’t require large hunks of meat; for example, lettuce wraps or the beef rolls in the photo, which are filled with cucumber matchsticks and mushrooms. There are options in many cuisines, such as the popular Japanese dish, beef negimaki: broiled strips of beef marinated in teriyaki sauce and rolled with sautéed scallions (you can substitute spinach).

Whichever recipes you prefer, smaller portions of red meat are better for you and Planet Earth.

They specifically note that “We estimated that substitutions of one serving per day of other foods (including fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy, and whole grains) for one serving per day of red meat were associated with a 7 percent to 19 percent lower mortality risk.”

You can have your red meat and eat it too—just eat less of it. That’s no beef.

*A number of studies have evaluated the impact of eating red meat on health and lifespan, but one of the largest and longest was conducted by a research team at Harvard School of Public Health and published in March 2012 in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Data was collected on 83,644 women from the Nurses Health Study and 37,698 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and the investigators were interested in how much meat each of these adults consumed over a 22-year to 28-year period.