Life is a like a bowl of expensive, organic potato chips at a rooftop party in Williamsburg. You never know if you’ll end up with sriracha, honey mustard, or plain (ew). Or like a cooler of beer in the dark–will it be Narraganset (cheapasses), Tecate (sufficiently low brow), or Weihenstephaner (overachievers)? In either case, you don’t have much say in the matter so just eat or drink it you asshole and take in that insane city view.

BUT you do have a say in brunch.

It’s so tempting to wake up late, put on my baggy (trendy?) jeans, and sample one of the plethora of (definitely trendy) brunch places around. I live a 15 minute walk from probably forty brunch options, offering anything from traditional Brazilian to high-brow Balinese to funky Colombian to outdoor, farm-to-table Brooklyn meets Australia. With new places popping up every weekend, it’s easy to feel like you’re “falling behind” on brunch. Which is dumb. Sampling more restaurants does not give you status.

But today it was BEET DAY. And so we set the beets a roasting and strolled to the farmers’ market for dill and eggs and the local Polish deli for rye toast and yogurt.

This was a very very good decision.

Our humble salad is unexpectedly tastier and more filling than the sum of its parts: sweet roasted beets, a tangy onion vinaigrette tangled into quick-boiled beet greens, and a spiced minty yogurt sauce. The onions mellow in the vinegar til they’re drunk and swooning. The yogurt tries to overwhelm our earthy beets with its tang, but, “Hell no,” the beets say, as they retain their characteristic sweetness and decide to co-exist platonically and peacefully. The beet greens seem massive and overwhelming and then a quick dunk in boiling water reduces their volume by approximately a zillion percent and they say “oh fine, we’ll share the spotlight. And then all this dill gets dropped on top and says I GO WITH EVERYTHING and all the veggies concede.

So for a perfect weekend: honey mustard chips, Tecate cans, and beets. Followed by watching El Mundial at a language meet-up group gathering, fixing up my bike, and discussing plans for a juggling workshop (truth).

Roasted Beets and their Greens with Mint Yogurt Sauce
Adapted from the New York Times

Ingredients:
3 beets and their greens, chiffonaded (see below for how-to!)
3 T fresh dill, snipped

Vinaigrette:
3 T red wine vinegar
1/3 cup red onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely diced
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground coriander
dash cayenne
salt and pepper
4 T olive oil

Yogurt:
1 small container full-fat Greek yogurt (about 1/2 cup)
1 small garlic clove, finely diced
2 T mint, chopped
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground coriander
dash cayenne
salt and pepper
1/2 T olive oil

Cook the beets:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash beets well. Trim off beet leaves and stringy pointy bit at other end. If beets are different sizes, cut some in half so they’re roughly the same size. Place in a single layer in a baking dish and fill with 1-2 inches of water, enough to mostly submerge. Cover with foil and cook for an hour to an hour and a half, or until fork tender. Once done, carefully drain the water and let cool. When cool, peel beets and watch fingers turn bright pink. Cut into small wedges.

Chiffonade, Clean, and Cook the greens:
Separate leaves from the pink stems, which you can discard, and cut leaves into thin ribbons. (I like the “roll and slice” method: pile about 5 leaves, roll them into a cigarette shape, and then slice rounds.) Dunk all these leaves into a big bowl of cold water, smoosh around for a minute, scoop out greens, and pour out water. Repeat until water in bowl is clean (2-4 times). Boil cleaned greens in a big pot of salted water for about 2 minutes, or until just wilted. Drain, rinse with cool water, and then squeeze to get rid of extra water.

Make the vinaigrette:
Combine red wine vinegar, onion, and garlic in small bowl and let stand about 5 minutes. Add rest of ingredients and mix with a fork.

Make the yogurt:
Combine all ingredients in a small bowl.

To finish, dress the beet greens with 1/3 of the vinaigrette. Put another 1/3 of the vinaigrette on the beets. Plate those two, spoon yogurt mixture on top, and sprinkle dill over everything.

Leftover vinaigrette is great with scrambled eggs or for spinach salad!

DISCLAIMER: All photos but the last one taken by Daniel and his fancy camera. My apologies to anyone who can’t bare to see posts go back and forth between lovely, edited photography and the iPhone version.