Doowutchyalike.

Thanks to Dusty Groove America

This makes a MASSIVE, simply massive amount of borscht†, ‡. The good news is that it will keep very well as it is vegan [if you omit sour cream] and that it will nourish you and everybody you bring a jar to [at the office or similar]. The other option is, of course, to fire up your calculator and create a partial batch. You might ask, Sjanz, why have you created such a huge amount of borscht for this recipe? The answer is that it’s all gauged around one head of cabbage, because I find that if I use a partial head it goes all sad and limp and stinky in the fridge. YMMV!!

†A note on this borscht: Ideally, you’ll want the food processor for this. Roots are hard to cut, and you need relatively small bits to render down properly. I have made borscht in the past by hand, and it always comes out a bit like Klingon food, probably because I get a little hasty. So if you have a food processor, get the grating attachment out, and a big side bowl to put your grated goods in, since most civilian food processors will need to grate this much in 3 batches.

‡And yet another note on this borscht: You can easily make it up with loose beets, freed of their greens. However, if be-greened beets are available, local and organic if possible, that’s how I roll; at the bottom of this recipe is what I like to do with the greens.

All right, no more notes. Here we go.

You will need:

2 bunches red beets

1 bunch golden beets

2 stalks celery

M made this look all old-timey with his Gimp-Fu; I like it

1 large carrot

1 russet potato

1 cooking onion

2 cloves garlic

1 “thumb’s” worth of ginger root

1 head white cabbage

Half a bunch of fresh dill

4 boullion cubes [onion or beef]

4 or 5 squirts of Bragg’s, to taste

4 tbsp olive oil

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

The juice of one lemon OR 1 tbsp lemon juice [I like the Santa Cruz organic]

2 tsp dried dill

½ tsp dried thyme

Top and tail the beets, and peel them. Cut the cabbage into quarters, core each quarter and cut the cored quarters into “food processor” sized chunks. Ditto the potatoes. Top and tail the carrots and celery. Cut the bottoms of the dill. Cut the onions into “food processor” sized chunks and peel the garlic and ginger. Got it? Good.

You can now proceed to julienne and finely dice almost everything, which should take you until 2012 or so. Or feed the onion, garlic, ginger, celery and carrot into the fp, in that order. Put in a bowl, set aside. Then feed the dill and beets. Set aside. THEN the potato and cabbage.

In a big ole soup pot, heat the olive oil on medium high heat. Add the onion &c., as a sort of gingery mirepoix. Add the dried herbs and salt and pepper. Stir until excess water has evaporated and the onion is translucent. Add beets and dill, and potatoes and cabbage. Keep stirring well. Salt and pepper as you go. The whole crazy mess will start to stick to itself and turn all pink/purple, just keep stirring until it sticks so much that you can’t standz no more.

THEN cover with water, add boullion, Bragg’s and a little more pepper. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 45 minutes. Test broth and make sure veggies are tender. Add lemon juice and reseason with salt, pepper, Bragg’s if necessary. Simmer on low heat for another half an hour or as long as you can stand it.

Serve with a sprig of your remaining fresh dill, sour cream or tofu sour cream [Bryanna Clark Grogan has a good one] and some farmer’s rye or pumpernickel toasts.

With the beet greens, slice ‘em in 1” slices and rinse very thoroughly. Feel free to add any sturdy green you have on hand e.g. kale, chard, mustard greens, even collards. Put all the greens in a sink full of water. In a very hot shallow pan, add 2 tbsp canola oil. When it gets stupidly hot, put the range fan on, and an apron. Stand back and get ready for fun. Put the wet greens in the pan and OH MY GOD they will crackle and hiss and steam horrifyingly, but that’s the good part. Get some tongs [silicon, ideally] and turn them whenever you can. Add 2 tbsp gomashio [that's sea salt and sesame seeds], and OPTIONALLY: 1 tsp chili-garlic sauce. Stir thoroughly. Ideally, the liquid will evaporate completely but as long as the greens are thoroughly wilted you’re good to go.

As soon as the greens are dark and limp, turn the heat off and OPTIONAL add: a splash of dark sesame oil and a bit of Bragg’s or soy sauce. Stir to toss thoroughly and let rest on the element for a little while. Serve on their own, or as another side for the borscht [some kind of weird Slavic/Asian crossover....Mongolian?]

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