One of my favorite vegetables is beets. They have versatile uses, are delicious and packed with nutrients. My favorite way to prepare them is in soup. There are many ways to prepare beet soup, I’m sure if I called it borscht then there would be countless comments such as “it’s not my Grandma’s borscht”… or, “Real borscht uses”… So I just make it my way. Feel free to tell us how you make it!
Alot of my cooking style keeps the ingredients to a minimum. I picked this up from my time in the Navy stationed in Japan and multiple trips there for work. Cooking in Japan after WW2 relied on simple recipes with close to 3 ingredients. This style focuses on smaller portions and taste of the meats and vegetables with minimal seasoning. For the meat if I choose to use it, I usually use left overs. They already have seasoning added! So the soup comes out with the flavors of the vegetables and the leftover meat. If I feel like extra seasoning I rarely use salt, rather I rely on black pepper and perhaps italian herbal seasoning available in any grocery store.
When I go grocery shopping, my number one rule is buy the cheapest. Number two is look at the produce or meat and make sure it’s not rotten or getting old. Organic is an excuse to charge you more for a product that just doesn’t have as much bug spray.
I cook most of my meals in a pressure cooker. It’s about 3/4 faster than regular cooking time. When I make this soup I cook everything at the same time. Sometimes depending on the ingredients I turn off the heat and release the pressure throughout the cooking time to add ingredients what would overcook if I added them all at the same time, such as turnips, cabbage, carrots etc.
I leave the skin on the beets because I like the contrast of the bitter skin and the sweetness of the inside. If I use them for salad I peel them. I chop the beets and cabbage into bite sizes and coarsely chop the onions and garlic, and used leftover sirloin steak chopped into bite sizes. A nice piece of heavy french bread went along with it.
This soup is very filling and satisfying. Good for lunch especially when I’m working and eat dinner a little later than normal.
Beet soup:
1 medium beet skin on chopped
1 cup chopped cabbage
1/2 chopped onion
1 large clove garlic chopped
6 ounces chopped sirloin
4 cups water
Heat the water on high in the pressure cooker with the lid off while chopping the ingredients. Add the meat, beets, onion and garlic, and cabbage in that order. put the lid on and seal it. When the pressure builds up and steam comes out of the top, turn the heat down to low and cook for ten minutes. Release the pressure and pour the soup into your bowl, let sit 10 minutes to cool and enjoy.
Pictures below of the ingredients and the pressure cooker I use, and my yummy bowl of soup! Enjoy.
Ingredients
