Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

 

 

 My love for corned beef is deep and verges on tragic. Since Ryan doesn't eat red meat, there is no corned beef here waiting to be the star of a St. Patrick's Day supper.  Honestly, I don't even know how to make one. If it weren't for my mother, I would probably be doomed to a life without corned beef.  Except.  Remember how I said it verges on tragic?  There is exactly one thing that keeps it from being tragic, and that is that I am a cold-hearted shrew. I have taken matters into my own hands and invited myself to my mother's house for dinner.  My poor husband will have to pack himself something to eat if he comes along.  I know I should feel shame at this, but really the only thing I feel right now is hungry.  My mouth is watering just looking at the tender, juicy corned beef in the photos.  Don't you want some?

CORNED BEEF

"Recipe"from my mother.  And you know how her recipes are.  

INGREDIENTS:

1 3-5 lb nitrate-free, organic, corned beef with lots of tasty spices on top(Why nitrate free? Damned if I know.  But I do know that nitrates are essentially saltpeter and my extensive exposure to the Revolutionary War has taught me that you use saltpeter to make gunpowder and there are many, many things I would put in my food before I put an additive that they use to make gunpowder).

water

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat your oven to 325 F.

Take the corned beef out of its package and rinse lightly. Try not to rinse off all the good spices, you want them to cook with the corned beef.  Find a large pan, hopefully something with a cover, that will also fit a rack to set the corned beef on, and room for some water.  I would do this in my dutch oven, but my mom has to use a pan, which she lines with tin foil and then covers with foil.  You want to avoid this if you can because the brine and tinfoil don't always play nice together and can give you an off flavor.  

So, put your rack in the pan, put the corned beef on the rack and the pour water in the pan up to the bottom of the corned beef. Cover with a lid or with foil as described above, cover tightly, not loosely. 

Pop it in the oven and check hourly, to see how the water is doing.  It's okay if there's more water, because the meat will give off some, you just don't want there to be less water.  That will make the meat dry out.

 

See?  The corned beef shrinks a lot, but it's getting all delicious and flavorful.  You should cook it for about an hour per pound.  At the end you'll get a glorious piece of meat.  Be sure to pick off the green leafy things from the spice mixture, because these are bay leaves and not particularly edible.  

Use it Up Round Up

Last weekend I promised to help you with a little bit of spring fridge cleaning. 

This week, I gave you two ideas for using up leftover bits and ends and corners of things that aren't quite big enough for a starring role.
 Frittata - Tortilla - Omelet - You name the egg product, you name your dinner.  Follow some basic guidelines here.

Basically, use some potatoes to bulk up your egg product.  Toss in leftover veggies.  Top off with some grated cheese and you're all set!

Big Salad - It's fast, it's easy and it often requires no cooking!  You can pile up whatever leftover veggies you have and some leftover protein (or protein from the pantry) and your dinner is served.

Find some inspiration here.

 Macaroni and Cheese - Don't just use up the ends of your cheeses, use up veggies too!  Plenty of tasty combinations and the happy melty goodness helps if you happen to have anyone around who isn't exactly over the moon about using up the cauliflower.

Soup - Be creative!  Soup will often gladly accept whatever you have to offer, especially if you have some good stock on hand.  

Bread Salad - Whether using it as a main dish or a side dish, bread salad is a dream for taking care of leftovers.  Anything that uses up stale bread is a winner in my book. It's incredibly flexible, just add some veggies and make a complimentary dressing.

Eggy Eviction

 

 Another fridge-forage-to-fantastic dinner is the frittata (or the tortilla, omelet, quiche, whatever your egg based pleasure.)  The one I made here was a minimal effort / maximum forgiveness model.  I started by rooting around for bits of things that needed to be used.  I came up with a corner of onion and some asparagus.

  

 There was also a very small chunk of pepper jack that didn't make the cut when I was making the odd lots macaroni and cheese.  I grabbed the cheddar while I was in there, because who doesn't like cheese? (That is not a sincere question.  I am sure there are cheese loathers out there, I just don't particularly want to associate with them.  So don't answer unless you have an interesting reasons for wanting to make me carry a grudge against someone. Then you can answer.)

And of course, I had an open package of bacon beckoning.  I don't think bacon knows how to do anything besides beckon.  It certainly doesn't retire to a corner of the fridge demurely waiting its turn.

Finally I collected some kitchen staples (eggs, potatoes, tomatoes) and got down to business.

INGREDIENTS:
Seriously, be free with the ingredients.
1 baking potato
6 eggs
1/2 C grated cheese
stuff to stick in it
I used, asparagus, onion, cherry tomatoes and bacon.  I've made it with crumbled sausage before, too which is super yummy.  Mushrooms are also tasty. 
olive oil
salt and pepper.

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium high pan, cook off any meat products.  Cook them thoroughly until done, set aside and then pour off any excess fat.  Then add your onion or garlic product. If you're using mushrooms or another veggie which can be sauteed in a pan, feel free to add it now too.  Use a smidge of oil and cook until the onions are translucent and whatever veggies you're using are mostly done.  (I roasted the tomatoes and asparagus in a toaster oven at 350 for about 20-25 minutes). 

Peel and slice a large baking potato.  I use a mandolin because I hate trying to make uniform slices.  Cover the bottom of the pan with potato slices as though you are making a pommes anna.  I layered this over the onion, but if you have a lot of chunky veggies you can pour all of it off into a bowl for now and then set down the potatoes.

Sprinkle the top of your potatoes liberally with salt and pepper.  Cover the pan and let cook for 12 minutes.  If your pan is too hot, turn it down, you do not want hard potatoes and if you put this over your onions, you don't want burnt onions.  While the potatoes are cooking, whisk your eggs together in a large bowl.  Right when the potatoes are finished, toss your veggies in with your eggs.  Then pour all of it over the potatoes.  Use a spatula to sort of mush it around so there's even coverage.  Then sprinkle on your meat.

Add the grated cheese evenly over the top and cover again.  Cook for 10 more minutes or until the eggs are set. Enjoy your delicious easy dinner and clean fridge!

Big Salad

Big Salad is my new go-to meal for when I don't feel like cooking.  Luckily my husband has an almost pathological need to have a salad with dinner, so it's not much of a stretch to convince him we should have a salad for dinner.  For my part, well, I never know when scurvy is going to strike, so I have to stay on top of my vegetable consumption.  The best thing about Big Salad though, is that you can make it from whatever the heck you have on hand.  Sometimes we go buy something for Big Salad (like the beautiful piece of salmon shown above), but it works with all kinds of leftover protein.  If you made some Chinese Chicken, throw in some Asian ingredients.  Chicken with Lemon and Oregano sitting in your fridge?  Go Greek!

So here's our basic formula for Big Salad:

1) Pick a protein, leftover or fresh.
2) Decide on an incredibly loosely interpreted flavor theme.
3) Round up loose end vegetables and such, wash, chop, steam if necessary.
4) Make a homemade dressing.
5) Serve.

Easy right? Because you can often use leftover (or in some cases below, ready to serve) protein it takes hardly any time to make.  The vegetable base for the salad is incredibly forgiving, absorbing all manner of leftover vegetable bits that aren't enough to make a real side dish.  Just let what you have on hand guide your salad style and then use certain (usually pantry friendly) elements to tie it all together. 

Here are some ideas to get you started:
 Asian - we did a soy glaze on the salmon, or use steak, then use snap peas, asparagus, red cabbage and cashews which we lightly steamed, the dressing was soy and sesame oil and rice wine vinegar.
Greek - use leftover chicken (the above link or regular lemon chicken work perfectly!), use feta and kalamata olives.  Mix up a dressing with red wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, finely chopped red onion and a bit of feta to help hold it together.
Nicoise - shrimp or tuna, hard boiled eggs, green beans, mix up a dressing of finely chopped kalamata olives, extra virgin olive oil, a mashed anchovy (or a smidge of anchovy paste) and  lemon juice.
Vegetarian - chickpeas and hard boiled eggs add plenty of protein, add any other veggies you like.  I secretly like this with store bought French dressing, but don't tell Ryan that.
Mediterranean - use white beans and tuna as your protein; mix up some extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar and finely chopped garlic for your dressing.
Just Freakin' Yummy - add slivered almonds, craisins and a dressing of red wine vinegar, finely diced red onion, extra virgin olive oil and some crumbled up blue cheese.
Mexican - left over chicken (especially if it started as fajitas or in salsa), black beans, cheese (so many different ones will work), jalapenos (you've got a jar shoved in the back of your fridge right?), avocado and make your dressing from a vegetable oil, some lime juice and a titch of adobo sauce and a bit of sugar.

Conquer Your Fridge

Come on, you best get to it, before it conquers you!!

Despite usually having my fridge and freezer well in hand, they had gotten away from me a bit, with things lurking in dark corners and bits and ends of things accumulating in their foils and plastic wraps.

Evidently the whole using up cheeses mission proved highly motivating for me, because this whole week I'm going to giving you meal tips to help you take charge of the situation in your fridge.

Tip # 1 - Know What You've Got

The chicken speaks the truth.

On the left hand size of our notepad we keep a running list of all leftovers in the fridge along with the date they were put there.  This way you know what needs to get used up and there's less speculation about the relative sanity of ingesting something of questionable age.

Use StillTasty if you're unsure (oh come on, they have an app).  I'm not as conservative as they are, but I like to live on the edge.

On the left hand side is the grocery list. 

My husband generally maintains the list.  I'm the person who eats the last of something and doesn't tell.  At least one of us is a team player.

Keeping a similar list for your freezer will let you know what you have on hand so that you can plan to use it.  My chicken and veggie bits bags that I keep for stock had taken over about a third of the freezer so it was time to actually get my act together and you know, make the stock.  Now I have happy little quart containers ready to go for soup making.

Tip # 2 - Plan Your Meals

When you plan what you are making, you can make sure you use things up when they need to be used up.  You can also be more efficient in the kitchen!  I have a spreadsheet organized by protein (ground meat, sausage, chicken, vegetarian, seafood) where I list all my meals.  I just pick a starting point, see what ingredients are needed and then see if there's any way to use them up later.

Tip # 3 - Use up the Bits and Bobs

Have a few meal ideas at the ready that will help you use up all those small amounts of protein and vegetables that seem to nestle into the blind spots in your fridge. I'll be giving you a couple ideas later this week that will help you deal with the itty bitty bits, but I'm sure you already have some recipes that are flexible and use up all sorts of random food products.

Share your ideas for meals that help you clean out the fridge!  Tell us in the comments!

Lenten Excess

 

Lent is supposed to be a time of austerity. I'm usually pretty big on doing without. Over the years, I've given up caffeine, diet drinks, shopping, sweets in all forms; really any number of bad vices, fun pastimes or delicious indulgences. This year I'm giving up sloth (no not this kind of sloth, the kind where you're really lazy and never exercise) which means I've sort of hit the double negative of going without.  If I do without doing nothing, I must be doing something, right?  

And a lucky thing that is too, because this macaroni and cheese has to be the most decadent meatless dish I've ever served up on a Lenten Friday.  It is so creamy and cheesy and rich and delicious, but it also uses up all the little bits of leftover cheese lurking in your cheese drawer.  And come on, how slothful can you be if you're efficient enough that use each morsel of food in you fridge, letting none go to waste?

Right.  It's a really good thing I'll be getting plenty of exercise.

 DELICIOUS MIXED UP MACARONI AND CHEESE

Evidently Sara Moulton reads my mind, because I ended up watching this episode the day I planned this dinner.  Kismet I say.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb pasta, I used elbows, but little shells are cute too

6 T butter

1 1/2 C milk

4 T flour

1 T Worcestershire sauce

4-5 drops hot sauce

1 T dijon mustard

plenty of cheese - I used monterey jack, cheddar and blue cheese (incidentally, this would be a great way to hide blue cheese if you have some but your family is not into it).  Sara suggested an 8-12 oz guideline.  I totally eyeballed it.

For optional topping:  1 T butter, 1/4 C panko breadcrumbs, olive oil, about 8 cherry tomatoes per person

DIRECTIONS:

Put the water for the pasta on to boil, when ready cook according to the directions on the package.  While the pasta is cooking, get the sauce ready.  In a large pot, melt the butter on medium heat.  Mix in the flour to make a roux, cook for 3-4 minutes while stirring until the butter and flour are all mixed together.  Remove from heat and add the milk and whisk well to incorporate.  Add the Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and mustard.  Return to the heat (now on low) and slowly add the cheese.  Hard cheese should be shredded, things like blue cheese or goat cheese you can crumble in.  Stir as you go.  You want the cheese to slowly melt into the the milk.  When it's all melted and the pasta is cooked and drained you can mix the sauce and the pasta.  At this point taste it and decide if it needs salt and pepper.  Mine didn't need salt because of the cheeses I used.  

OPTIONAL TOPPINGS:

The slow cooked cherry tomatoes are heaven and provide a sharp and sweet balance to the richness of the cheese.  I put them on a foil covered tray, tossed them in a bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and stuck them in a 300 F oven for about 40 minutes.  Delicious.

The panko breadcrumbs give a nice crunch.  Heat up the tablespoon of butter in a pan, toss in the breadcrumbs until golden and sprinkle over the top.

Jealous? Who Me? Nah.

I assume you are familiar with my usual Oscar party?  Pajamas, sofa, disinterested husband?  Making scintillating observations about fashion which go entirely ignored?

What I may not have mentioned is that my parents spend Oscar night at a party in New York City thrown by friends of theirs, one of whom is an actual voting member of the Academy (this is simultaneously less cool and more cool than it sounds).  However, I have set aside all feelings of jealousy.  I do not require a party thrown in the city that never sleeps; I do not require a fancy guest list (or in fact, any guest list). So long as my food is better, I have won.  And since I know they had standard issue delivery pizza, I win.  Because my pizza was soooo good. The nutty gruyere was balanced by the gooey mozzarella, the mushrooms sauteed with garlic and oh, the duck.  The sweet, scrumptious duck.  The heavenly crispy duck cracklings.  Now who's jealous?


OSCAR NIGHT PIZZA

INGREDIENTS:
1/3 recipe of dough
8 oz assorted mushrooms (I used a prepacked blend of shiitake, baby bella and oyster mushroom)
1 T olive oil
2 t balsamic vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 store-bought fully cooked duck half - see below
1 1/2 T hoisin sauce
1 1/2 C grated mozzarella
1 C grated gruyere
salt and pepper

Store bought duck - you don't need quite this much, but there's no harm in leftovers.

DIRECTIONS:
Heat up the duck as directed on the package.  Remove the skin, and cut the rest into bite sized bits. Toss the bits with 1 1/2 T hoisin and set aside.  Increase the oven temperature to 450 F.  Take the skin and slice it into 1/4" strips.  Place the skin on foil, sprinkle with salt and pop in the oven for about 5-10 minutes or until crispy. Set these duck cracklings aside (really, they are SO good). Rinse your mushrooms off.  Chop them into smallish pieces. In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil to medium.  Add the minced garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes.  Then add the mushrooms and cook until soft. This should take 5-8 minutes.  You want them tender.  Add the balsamic and some salt and pepper (taste to see how much you need).  Set the mushrooms aside. In another bowl mix your mozzarella and gruyere.

Roll out your dough.  I usually sprinkle some cornmeal on the bottom of the pan I'm using to make the pizza, so do that, then transfer your dough.  Top it with the cheese mixture.  Then even sprinkle the mushrooms over, then then duck bits and finally the cracklings.  Cook at 425 or 450 for about 7-8 minutes depending on how done you like the crust.

Why I No Longer Look Cute in a Bikini...

The fact of the matter is, I'm over thirty.  When we moved from the city to the suburbs I gained a rather stubborn five pounds due to my new life of sloth.  To buy things for dinner I must get in a car and drive places, not hitch up the pup and head out for a pleasant food gathering amble about the neighborhood.  My car is never out of sight, so I lug my heavy work bags mere feet before slinging them into the trunk in the morning; gone are the 4-8 block treks.  On weekends we sigh and moan and complain about our limited dining choices and then either pop in the car, or just surrender to the siren lure of the freezer.  No longer do we carefully weigh the cab fare against the mile and a half walk to Chinatown before changing shoes, heading out and then wondering exactly what we were thinking when we find ourselves starving before we actually get there.

But I expect my fondness for food isn't doing me any favors either.  Take this Chicken Paprikash.  Oh, it's delicious, warm and creamy and perfect for chilly winter nights.  Unfortunately, all that sour cream is entirely unsympathetic when it comes to my formerly girlish figure. What can I say? 

If anyone wants to meet me at the mall I'll be in the caftan section trying to purchase a cover for my shame.

DELICIOUS ALTHOUGH FATTENING CHICKEN PAPRIKASH

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb chicken breasts or thighs, I like how juicy thighs turn out

salt/pepper

2 T olive oil

1C finely chopped onions

1t finely chopped garlic

2T sweet Hungarian paprika

1C chicken stock

2 T flour

1 C sour cream

DIRECTIONS:

Pat chicken dry and salt and pepper.

Heat the olive oil to medium high and add the chicken. Golden brown on one side, turn and brown other side. Don't crowd chicken. If you're using thighs, do about 4-5 minutes per side and your chicken will be done and you can set it aside. 

 

Reduce the heat and add onions and garlic and cook over medium low heat for 8-10 minutes or til lightly colored. After that remove from the heat and stir in the paprika until the onions are well coated.

 

Return skillet to heat and add chicken stock. Bring to a boil, stirring brown bits from bottom and sides of pan.

 

In mixing bowl, stir flour into sour cream with wire whisk and stir into simmering juices. Simmer 6-8 min or until sauce is thick and smooth.

 

Return chicken and any juices to skillet heat long enough to warm through.  Revel in the warm savory creamy goodness.  Buy a caftan to cover your sins.

Sweet Somethings

In the past few years my Valentine treat posts have been a bit lacking, to put it kindly.  Mostly they consist of some "we're not valentine-y people" type blather and a refusal to give you a recipe for some crap dessert that I couldn't quite pull together properly. But not this year! I have both a sweet and gooey brownie recipe that you will adore and the story (not particularly sweet or gooey) of how I met my husband, whom I adore.

So let's dispense with the flowers and hearts and cupids, this is not a story about long walks on the beach and heartfelt gazes.  It's the story of how one night, my tendency to feel exceedingly sorry for myself coupled with my incomparable pessimism about the future met something they couldn't overcome: my best friend, Lizzie.  We'd headed to a local bar because it was Lizzie's last night in town and we are fundamentally lazy people.  Our conversation turned to the rather pathetic state of my love life and because I was a completely ancient twenty-four years old I declared quite piteously that no one, ever, would ever date me.  I'm a lucky girl, but more importantly, I choose my friends well and that's probably why instead of smacking me (which I certainly deserved) Lizzie managed to say (with no sarcasm, exasperation or condescension) that she was pretty sure any guy in the entire bar would go out with me, if I asked.  I'm not entirely clear on the particulars of how this became a bet, but I do know that twenty dollars were laid on the line, mine for the taking if I asked a guy and was rejected, Lizzie's to keep if I got a date out of it.  Now, I take things seriously when money is involved, so I decided it was only fair that Liz select the guy.  This way I wouldn't be able to make a quick buck off her by asking out someone married or gay or otherwise impossible to get.  She turned around, pointed to a guy behind us and said "He's cute.  Ask him out." So I did.  I can't say he was particularly thrilled at the prospect (his response was "Um, I don't really know you, but, okay, I guess"), but it seems to have turned out well for him.  Honestly though, we are both incredibly lucky that Lizzie has such good taste.

If you are still single, please feel free to take your best friend to task for failing to provide you with the right guy.  Also feel free to eat the whole damn pan of turtle brownies yourself.  If Ryan weren't such a great guy, I probably wouldn't share.

And yes, I really did meet my husband, in a bar, on a bet.  No joke.  It's still the best $20 I ever spent.

TURTLE BROWNIES
Inspired by Pioneer Woman and She's Becoming DoughMessTic

INGREDIENTS
for the caramel:
1/2 C heavy cream (sure you can cheat and use any cream, or half and half, it will just be looser)
1 t kosher salt
1 C sugar
3 T light corn syrup
1 t vanilla
1/4 C sour cream

for the brownies:
4 oz semisweet Ghiradelli chocolate
1 stick butter (8 T)
1 C sugar
3 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 1/2 C flour
1-2 cups chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 325 F.

Begin making the caramel.  In a small saucepan, whisk together the heavy cream and salt.  Heat on low, just enough to dissolve the salt.  Pour in a bowl and set aside. In another saucepan (or heck, wash the same one), combine the sugar and corn syrup.  Heat on medium high to 350 F on your candy thermometer.  Be sure to stir frequently so it doesn't burn, clump or do anything else untoward.  I probably should have pulled it when the thermometer got to 340 because it doesn't cool quickly and you don't want it burned.  It should be a medium golden brown when you pull it, and the sugar and corn syrup will have melted all together.  Remove it from heat for a minute, then add the cream mixture while stirring constantly.  This will cause it to foam up and over the sides of your pan.  Try to avoid burning yourself.  Curse if necessary.  Use a larger pan next time.Add the vanilla and then whisk in the sour cream.  Let it cool to room temperature (I put it in the fridge), while you get the brownies together.

Prepare a 8x8 baking dish, by lining it with tinfoil (tip: flip the pan upside down, mold the tinfoil to the bottom and then pick it up and stuff it in.  No more tears as you get it to fill the corners!).  I sprayed that puppy with cooking spray, but you could butter it, butter and flour it, do whatever you like to keep it from sticking.  Okay, using a double boiler, your microwave or a glass bowl over a metal pan heat the butter and chocolate together until melted.  (Don't know how to melt it?  Okay, the saucepan gets a few inches of water.   Increase the heat until it's at a boil.  Pop a large glass bowl on top, filled with your chocolate and butter - it'll go faster if these are roughly chopped.  Hold the bowl with a potholder, stir with your spare hand).  Remove bowl from heat and mix in the flour.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and sugar.  Fold the chocolate/flour mixture into the eggy sugary stuff.  Mix until it's all one color.  Pour half the batter into the brownie pan.  Pop it in the oven and bake for 18 minutes.  Pour half the caramel over the top, spreading evenly.  Sprinkle the pecans all over the caramel layer.  Then carefully dab the rest of the batter over top.  It will be stickier and harder to spread, so I sort of dolloped it equally all over and then sort of patted it in place.  Give it another 20-23 minutes of cooking. It won't set up completely because of the caramel, but the brownie part should seem baked when you stick in a knife.  You should mainly get caramel back.  Don't overbake though because that would be yucky.  Remove from the pan.  Use utensils/plates only if in polite company.

PS: Yeah, you do still have half a recipe of caramel. But that's your business.

Pretty Perky

In case you're stumbling in late from the New Year and have missed my month of woe-is-me wallowing, let's just say I needed a little pick me up. Having stopped at a local farm and departed with a softball sized beet, I was hopeful that a little bright color and salty sweet goodness would do the trick.  It's pretty messy to make, you may want to strip to your skivvies and then cover anything else you care about (floor, counters, pets, children) with a drop cloth, but when it's done you may just want a larger fork to get it to your mouth faster.  If it's enough to make me smile, it just might get you through the winter doldrums too.

SWEET POTATO AND BEET HASH
recipe from Melissa d'Arabian.  
Enough hash as a side for 2 with a smidge left over. If you wanted it to be the main event (maybe with some poached eggs) you could easily just increase the amounts.

INGREDIENTS:
1 softball sized beet (or 2 little beets)
1 large sweet potato (or 2 little sweet potatoes)
4-6 slices of bacon ( I had to make do with 3, of turkey bacon no less.  It was tragic.)
1/2 a large onion or a whole small onion, diced.
olive oil
salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 400 F.  Cover a large baking sheet with tinfoil.  Remove any clothing items of value and cover what remains with an apron you're okay with ruining.  Consider putting on disposable gloves.  Attack the beet.  Peet it, cut off the stalk and end bits and then dice into 1/4 inch pieces.  Put on one side of the baking sheet.  Wash up and clean up all beet mess now, before it stains.  Peel the sweet potato and dice it to the same size as the beets, put the pieces on the other side of the baking sheet. I intermingled mine.  But you know the beets sort of bleed a bit, and they cook at slightly different rates (the potato is faster), so you might want a way to get the potatoes out earlier than the beets, which you could do if you haven't tossed them together.  Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Gently toss each respective vegetable with only it's own kind.  Bake for 45 minutes. I started checking mine around 30 minutes, and I think I could have pulled the potatoes then, but for all the mixing.  With only about 15 minutes left on the timer, start your bacon.  In a large skillet, add 1/4 or 1/2 inch squares of bacon.  Cook on medium until crispy.  Using the rendered fat (pour off a bit if there's too much), add the diced onion.  Cook until sweet and translucent. It's okay if it's a bit crispy.  When the beet and sweet potato are soft, add them to the pan and toss everything together.  The beet will bleed a bit on everything, but that's okay.  Serve as a side or just get a fork and stand over the pan.