Roasted Beets with Barley, Greens and Feta

This is the last time I'm going to expend any more energy urging you to give beets a chance. I've already shared two of my favorite beet dishes here and here; if they weren't enough to convince you, I'm unsure that this dish will. Maybe you need to read my top 3 reasons to eat beets: 

1. They're pink! Or is it purple? Somewhere in between.
2. They're full of tons of vitamins and minerals, including folate, manganese, beta keratin, anti oxidants, and lots of fiber.
3. They taste good when you eat them. (especially when they've been roasted into sweet tenderness rather than pickled in a can). 

Are you convinced?  

Roasted Beets with Citrus and Feta

I am currently on a road trip and sitting in one of the grimier motels I've ever been in. There are 5 strip clubs down the street and several shady-looking dudes loitering around the building. Welcome to the ghetto part of San Diego. I'm also thinking that it would be very nice if I had something light and tasty to munch on (twizzler pull-n-peels get a bit old after two days of pulling and peeling). Something citrusy. Something juicy. Like this salad.

I have a strange relationship with beets. Some days I love them; other days the mere thought of beets makes me gag just a little. The day I made this salad was an excellent beet day. And I bet you wouldn't have thought to combine citrus and beets and feta and barley, but it really is an excellent match, I assure you.

Russian Borsch

So let's talk about Borsch. Borsch (sometimes spelled with a -t at the end) is a beet soup popular in Russia, Ukraine, and many other Eastern European countries. It has many variations- beef, chicken, pork, meatless, thick, thin, with tomatoes, without tomatoes, dill, no dill, hot, cold, sour cream, no sour cream- but it's always tasty. The beets give it the unique pink-purpley color, and the cabbage (usually green) adds a lovely contrast.