Week 7: Heart Beets, Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day friends! Last night we were lucky to share our love frittata with friends. I wanted to incorporate V-day into the frittata and of course the rich beautiful red of beets came to mind. I upped the egg count for our guests and incorporated last week's techniques for a fluffy rich frittata. My mother-in-law gave us a wonderful pancake mold last Valentine's day in the shape of a heart and I was able to use the smaller part to shape the beets.

8 eggs
2 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp water
1/8 cup shredded Gruyere
1 small onion
1 medium shallot
sprinkle of cayenne
s+p to taste
beets (I used about 3/4 of a small can of sliced unsalted beets)
goat cheese

Saute the beets in a bit of oil and s+p for a couple minutes on each side, set aside on a paper towel. Finely slice the onion and shallot and saute for about 10 minutes, until nicely browned. Beat eggs, cream, water, Gruyere, cayenne, and s+p and pour into frittata pan. Cook on the oven top until the bottom and sides set. Throw the pan under the broiler for a minute or two, look for the top to set and become fluffy. Take out and add goat cheese medallions followed by your beets, place back under the broiler for a minute or two.

Delicious! Beets and goat cheese are a great love match, another keeper frittata. We served this with roasted white sweet potatoes, arugula salad and bubbly!

On another beet note, I used some of the leftover beet juice to dye frosting for my chocolate whoopie pies with rosewater-vanilla butter/cream cheese frosting. The cakes/pies were delicious, they had a great texture on the outside, although they were slightly dry and crumbly inside—maybe I cooked them a minute too long? The frosting was great, next time I will add more beet juice to get a richer pink (hard to see the color below). I was nervous about the frosting picking up the earthy fragrance of beets, but it didn't at all.

What a lovely way to end a lovely day.