After a mildly disappointing Thanksgiving rendered my culinary faculties too tuckered out to produce anything worth talking about, I came home today (to do the laundry, mostly) and had to figure out what to make for dinner.
UPDATE: I'm still on my "foodie" diet. I log my calories every day on Livestrong.com's The Daily Plate website and have to watch my fat intake like a hawk watches a bunny traipsing innocuously below. Or something. Take that into account when you're reading this.
Pretty much all the protein in the house was frozen, so that was out. No tilapia, no chicken, no turkey (GOD, NO) and no ground beef. I scored some lovely beets, though, from my favorite produce purveyor, Clemons Produce on Curry Ford Rd in Orlando. While there, also stocked up on new crop of BEAUTIFUL McIntosh apples, my favorite winter Delicata squash and Bosc pears for dessert at some point this week.
So, I roasted the beets. I also had some lovely red navel oranges my mom gave me. Those are wintery and go so well with beets. Something creamy....YES...1 ounce of that gritty, amazing cave-aged Roquefort (below, second from the left, next to that oozy Brie de Paris).
My thoughts at this point: Hm. Oranges, beets and cheese do not a salad make. Also, thank God my sweet Cliff isn't here. He'd "where's the meat" me all the way to Kingdom Come. Back to the salad - I need something bind it all together. By the way, I don't usually use these plastic cutting boards - but for beets, they're pretty much the best choice if you don't want your bamboo board stained purple.
Sage browned butter it is. A tsp of butter in a non stick pan on high heat for a few seconds and dump a bunch of chopped sage in. DELICIOUS! SEASONAL! NUTTY! SANS NUTS!
Okay, I know I'm not supposed to have butter, technically - but it was such a tiny amount and I had only had 6 grams of the stuff earlier in the day - so butter was totally admissible in my book. Besides, what else was I supposed to use...Smart Balance? To me, I'd rather have churned cream any day over processed oils - no matter how much of a 'smart' choice they may be.
I've had a roll of polenta in my fridge for a few months now (don't worry - unopened it won't go bad), so I sliced a few pieces off and sauteed them in the pan with the sage butter.
Holy awesome.
I put it all together and had a raspberry-hued glass of the 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau* I didn't get to drink at our Mormonized Thanksgiving. Oh man, this was true winter heaven.
Eat it, summer. You're OVER.
*Wine Note: This year's Beaujolais Nouveau is very, very good and opens up nicely AFTER DECANTING. You need a decanter. I like this one.
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