Beet Chips with Creamy Avocado Chive Dip

Happy Weekend everyone!

You know what I’ve been kind of obsessed with lately?  Beets.  I’m serious.

Why beets?  For one thing, they’ve been getting delivered to us en masse each week in our CSA delivery from Laguna Farms.  So we’ve had an abundance of them, and I’ve been making the most of it!  Juicing, steaming, grating over salads, oven roasting, you name it.  After all the madness of vacation last week, I was thrilled to be home and back in my own kitchen.

In my experience, beets are a love or hate kind of vegetable.  Like, if you love them you LOVE them, especially with goat cheese and arugula.  Am I right?  And if you hate them, you HATE them.  Like, can’t even stand the juice of one touching your other salad greens.  But they are soooo very good for you, people.  They are basically a miracle food.

Here are just a few of their many benefits:  They can lower your blood pressure within hours of eating just one serving.  They are serious cancer-warriors, rich in phytonutrients.  They fight inflammation in your body and aid in weight loss.  Who doesn’t love that?

They have been proven to boost your stamina in a workout, and my personal favorite:  They are serious detoxifying agents, assisting your liver in processing toxins out of your body.  Remember that next time you feel a little under the weather after a long night… a vegetable juice with beets in it will basically help you to feel entirely restored in short order!  I may or may not have experienced this phenomenon myself.  And so has my husband, which has converted him from a beet-hater, to a beet-lover!!!  I’m serious, you guys.  I never thought this would happen, but my beet-hating husband experienced the healthy rush you get from fresh beet juice when the taste was masked by ginger.  Next thing I know, he’s ordering the beet and kale salad at a local restaurant for lunch, like, every day.

Thank you, beets.  We love you.  And God knows I need your benefits after nine days in Hawaii.  I mean, I did my best to eat healthy, but I can’t say a cocktail or two didn’t slip in there most nights.  I’m only human!  So when I came home to a fridge full of beets, I knew they were waiting to restore me to perfect health.  🙂

Okay.  Now that you know WHY you should be all over beets like a Great Dane on a couch,

let me share with you this tasty way to consume them:  beet chips.

Kale chips have been all the rage lately, but beet chips should be in first place here, in my opinion!  Beets start out stiffer, so they are a better vehicle for delicious dips, like my Creamy Avocado Chive Dip.

Ideally, you would have a mandolin to slice the beets, and if you have one, by all means use it.  I don’t, so I painstakingly sliced the beets by hand.  Whatever works.  I used to find chopping a pain, but lately I find it a kind of meditation and it soothes me to put on some good music and chop away.  You should end up with beets that are sliced to about 1/16 of an inch wide and as even as possible.

Toss those beauties with a couple tablespoons of olive oil and line em up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Put them in a 350 degree oven and bake for 25-40 minutes.  The timing will really depend on your particular oven.  I put 25 minutes because that’s what I pulled from a recipe.  But upon further research (after my own chips were nowhere near crispy at that time) the timing can vary.

I’ll be honest here, it took me three batches to get the right temperature/timing combo!  The beets are delicate and will go from soft to burned very quickly.  What ended up working for me in the end was keeping a close eye on them at around 30 minutes, and pulling them out when they start to look pale, but not black.  They will get pale right around the moment they attain that perfect crispiness, but if you leave them even a minute or two longer, they can burn!  So keep a close eye at the 25-30 minute mark, even if you have to keep putting them back in for an extra five minutes.

While the beets are cooking in batches, you can move on to the dip!  This is a cool, creamy, guilt-free dip that goes perfectly with the earthiness of the beets.  Start with a cup of greek yogurt (I used organic, whole milk yogurt), and blend up with an avocado, chives, zucchini, olive oil, salt and pepper.  The zucchini adds a nice texture to the dip while being neutral in flavor.  Make sure to dice it super small, a technique I recently learned is called brunoise.

I used a Vitamix, but you could also just mash it up or use a food processor.  Don’t over blend!  You want the zucchini a little chunky to add texture.  Mix it all up and you have some creamy, cool, tangy goodness that is full of healthy fats and protein from the Greek yogurt.

When those beet chips are ready, unload them onto paper towels and let the oil seep out for a bit while they cool.  Once they’re dry, toss gently with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Then cuddle up on your couch and munch away while you feel good about the hardcore nutrition you’re getting from this snack.  I mean, it’s practically a balanced meal.  Healthiest veggie, healthy fat, protein, you’ve got it all here.  Snack away!  Or make it your dinner, like I did.  🙂

I admit to consuming large amounts of beets during the making of this blog post.  Which might explain these:

Beets, y’all!  Get them in your belly!  Ok I’m not sure where that y’all came from, but in my defense, we did hang out with our family who currently live in Dallas last week so… can I blame it on them?

So… yeah.  You might think I’m crazy.  But seriously!  I get so happy messing around in the kitchen with super-veggies.  And you will too.  You should totally make these ASAP.  Do your body and your snacking urge a favor and make these for your next potluck.  People will be like, “Oh you fancy now.”  And you’ll have to agree.  😉

Beet Chips with Creamy Avocado Chive Dip

Ingredients 

2 pounds beets (use large beets, they shrink in the oven!)

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

1 Cup organic Greek yogurt (I used Strauss Family)

1 Avocado

1 Tablespoon olive oil

2 Tablespoons fresh chives, chopped fine

1/2 zucchini, finely diced

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Wash beets, no need to peel.  Slice to 1/16 of an inch as evenly as possible, or use a mandolin.  Toss them in the olive oil, then lay flat on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake for 25-40 minutes (Hint:  keep an eye on them between 25-30 minutes and remove beets that turn pale.)  Flip the beets halfway through cooking.  If you want to get all Martha Stewart on this thing, you can press the beets flat by placing an extra baking sheet on top of the baking beets to keep them flat.  As you can tell by my photos, I didn’t do that.  You guys know me.  I like the rustic look.  🙂

Bake the beets in shifts, depending on how many you have.

Meanwhile, mix the yogurt, olive oil, avocado, chives, zucchini, and salt and pepper in a food processor or blender.  Pulse a few times to mix, but leave slightly chunky.  Transfer to bowl and garnish with extra chives.

When the beets are done, lay them out on paper towels to cool and dry, and soak off some oil.  Toss gently with sea salt and pepper.  Then dip and enjoy!