Beet Greens with Vegan Sausage, Steamed Golden and Red Beets

We had guests for dinner tonight, a couple visiting the area for several weeks on work from California. We are also meeting them for dinner after my class tomorrow night.

I had some golden beets (greens and roots) and red beet roots. The greens are apparently even more nutritious than the roots. I put the roots, just basically trimmed but not peeled, in my steamer and steamed the beet roots for about 40 minutes. They looked neat in the last 10 minutes (or longer - I just noticed at this point) when they were gently bubbling. Then I put each beet under cool water long enough that I could handle it and gently rubbed the outer skin. I cut off a little of the very top and was ready to serve it.

For the greens, I coarsely chopped into thirds or fourths. In a saute pan, I started sauteing some elephant garlic, cut into large chunks (maybe 1/2" cubes), and slightly smaller chunks of smoked apple sage vegan sausage. I cooked for about 10 minutes; the garlic was light brown and the sausage getting crispy. I added the beet leaves and sauteed another few minutes. Then I added some Baja Lime marinade, salt, and hot chili powder, mixed, and removed from the heat.

I also served some grilled asparagus and a salad that included roasted tomato and orange bell pepper. In addition, I had made Lundberg Farms Black Japonica short-grained black and medium-grained mahogany rices cooked with a vegan bouillon cube (ratio of 1 rice to 2 liquid cooked in my rice cooker for about 45 minutes) in my 10-cup Zojirushi rice cooker.

I think that everybody enjoyed the meal. I wish that I had made more of the main course with beet greens. I wonder if I could enliven the beet green course with some more color.