Mmmmm, Delicious BEETSO Soup!

Let me tell you, people went KRAYZEE for last week’s #BEETTUESDAY recipe for BEET Encebollado, a traditional beet dish from SUNNY SPAIN! That got me thinking, “what other countries have FANTASTIC beet recipes?” Of course, with SUNNY SPAIN in my head, the very first country that came to mind was JAPAN - THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN!

You see, in JAPAN - THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN - people LUV to eat BEETSO, which is made of fermented beets. This is a VERY SPECIAL ingredient that can be used in a million or more recipes. I am going to tell you how to make BEETSO and I hope you will share some of the million or more things you have made with it!

First, you will need to make sure you have an appropriate fermentation vessel. This, I think, can be and dang thing you have that is made out of one of these materials: pottery, enamel, glass, plastic or porcelain (which, I am told, is a kind of pottery, and that was the first thing on the list!).

Annoyingly, the recipe I have here uses the anachronistic “metric” system for its measurements. That is silly. I would do the conversion but I can’t think of an easy way to do that. I’ll be there’s a way to use a computer or the “Internet” for that - and whoever finds a way to do “conversions” “online” will probably make “a mint!”

Ingredients!

• 1,000 lbs of beets - the more of these you have the more BEETSO you will be able to make; and the more BEETSO you make the more friends you will have; and the more friends you have the more they will tell their friends about your BEETSO; and that will lead you to making more! You you are really good at making BEETSO you may need to buy all of the beets on planet earth! That is how much people will want to eat!

These are BEETS!

• 2,000 lbs of bologna - (the original recipe said something like KOJI so I found something that kind of rhymes with it)

This is pronounced Baa-Low-Knee.

• 600 lbs of salt - nowadays, you have two choices when it comes to salt, that from the sea (which is called SEA SALT) or that from les montagnes (which is called MOUNTAIN SALT). Either is fine.

This mountain is a perfect source for sel de montagne. You can even SEE the salt all around the top!

• H2O - this is the chemical description of water. If you are lucky and have water delivered to you house, either through pipes or in buckets or in bottles or from a giant vat on your ceiling you probably can get this easily. If you do not, you can bind two hydrogen atoms with one atom of oxygen. Even though I have access to water I prefer to create my own, it’s fresher that way! Regardless of how you get your H2O, you will need a LOT for this recipe!

This is water. You will need a lot of it.

Instructions!

1. Soak the beets for a very long time. At least 40,000 seconds. When the beets are as soft as the velvety muzzle of a bull dog they are ready to cook. Now some people think the heat source matters when it comes to cooking BEETS. Balderdash, I say. I’ll bet if you cooked a trillion bowls of BEETS in all different ways no one would be able to tell one from the other after the first few thousand tries. I put the BEETS and the H2O into a giant caldron and heat it over a wood fire like the witches in that scarey play, McBain that’s on the Simpsons I think.
2. Now squish up the beets in a gigantic mixing bowl.
3. In a separate gigantic mixing bowl combine the BOLOGNA with 400 lbs of sel de montagne.
4. Add the H2O to the BEET and BOLOGNA glop. Do it slowly and mix it slowly and take your time checking it and don’t rush. You’ll know it’s right when you can make the BEETS and BOLOGNA into a ball you can use to play stickball.
5. Now it is time for the fermentation vessel. The only porcelain thing I could think of was my toilet. (Be sure to flush before using it for cooking!)

If you don't have an "official" fermentation vessel you can use your toilet - but be sure to flush first!

6. Throw the balls into the toilet, they should make a “plopping” sound. Aim carefully! Be sure there is no air in the toilet! Squash the balls into the toilet until there form a nice flat surface.
7. Sprinkle the remaining sel de montagne (about 200 lbs give or take) on the surface of the toilet. Be sure to put a lot of sel de montagne around the edges of the toilet for that is where bad fungus may appear!
8. Cover with toilet paper or something else. No matter what you use, be sure it covers the ENTIRE SURFACE of the toilet to prevent mold.  
9. Now, my friends, you must wait. And I hate to say it, but you must wait for a long long time. In fact, at the very LEAST you must wait about 15 million seconds and ideally as long as 63,000,000 seconds.
10. When you have finished counting to 63 million, your BEETSO is ready for use!

Here is my recipe for BEETSO soup:

Ingredients!

• Some weed. You can use any kind of weed you can find. In my backyard over at the compound there is a creeper that drives us craze. We use that.
• 10 cups of dried out brown weed. This isn’t the best but it should be easy to find in your yard.

These weeds should work just fine!

• 5 cups of BEETSO! (See above)
• 5 lbs of tofu or pound cake. Really, I think anything white will do, even marshmallows. In fact, you can replace the sel de montange in the BEETSO recipe to make a delicious desert!
• 5 lbs of scallions greens. I had to look this up. These are the tops of onions apparently. Who has that! You can just use onion peels.

Instructions!

1. Stir all of the ingredients together (you may need to add H2O)
2. Put it over a fire or other heat source.
3. Stir even more.
4. Let it almost boil (AKA SIMMER) for 60 second.
5. Serve and enjoy!

Now that is what I call a DOUBLE WINNER! You really got TWO #BEETTUESDAY recipes for the price of one! Maybe next week I will not give you a new one? Ha! Don’t worry, I am only kidding you! Of course I will share another WONDERFUL BEET recipe next week!

If you have questions on this WONDERFUL BEETSO recipe you should EMAIL me at andylamsuperstar@gmail.com and I will do my best to answer you!

With a rapidly BEETING heart, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

A BEET-utiful Trip to Sunny Spain!

Yesterday I was kind enough to share what I know about the very interesting Bastille Day and how the French people of the city were able to save General De Gaulle before the people of the party burnt him at the stake! If you go south in France and turn right you will come to some big mountains. The are the dividing line between France and Spain. The biggest of these mountains is the Matadorhorn. It got its name because its twin peaks resemble the hats the bull fighters (aka “matadors”) used to wear on their heads.

A smart and careful reader might have noticed that I wrote about bullfighters wearing these hats in the past tense. That is because now, in Spain, Cows and Bulls are considered sacred.Now, in Spain everything revolves around cows. Yes, there was a time when they had bullfighting there, but that is a thing of the past. Today, you will see cows walking around Spain wherever they want to go and the people all love it! I was on the bus the other day and who should walk on but a cow! It just climbed on to the bus, showed the driver its pass and took a seat.

A group of cows preparing to board an airship to visit Betelgeuse.

No one knows how or when or why cows became so revered in Spain but the truth is cows have special rights and privileges and no one would dream of taking them away! Cows (and bulls) can get away with stuff that would get you or me (assuming you are a person and not a cow) into a heap of trouble! For example, the other day I watched as a cow - without the least embarrassment! - DEFECATED in the back of a truck it was riding it! Poop was everywhere, flying through the air, landing on the street, splashing other cars and pedestrians!

I can’t say for certain but I am willing to go out on a limb to say that if you or I did that (assuming you are a person and not a cow) we would get some hairy eyeballs from people! So for whatever reason cows in Spain just have way more rights than homo sapiens. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, just different.

Those differences show up in all different ways. For example, all Spanish money features cows. All of the famous art features cows. If you turn on the radio in Spain, all you will hear and discussions about cows. If you go to the movies in Spain they will all star cows. Do you like music? In Spain all music is now played and sung by cows. (I have to say, most of the time it is absolutely MOO-tiful!) If you are going to see a dance in the theater be prepared! All of the dancers are cows now!

All over Spain, Cows (and bulls) are replacing people in one area after another. Airline pilots? Cows. Stock brokers? Cows. Clerks? Cows. Lifeguards? Cows. Babysitters? Cows. Judges? Cows. Tight Rope Walkers? Cows. Urologists? Cows. Pizza chefs? Cows. Calzone chefs? Cows. Stromboli chefs? Cows. CEOs? Cows. Middle school teachers? Cows. Puppeteers? Cows. Fine artists? Cows. Little by little, cows are taking over - and who can complain? They are smarter, work longer hours, make fewer mistakes than we people do.

But don’t for a moment imagine that we are the only thing cows are planning to replace! The cows - not surprisingly - a strict vegetarians and have insisted that meat be removed from every menu. Of course everyone agreed because no one wants to offend our bovine overlords! When the cows learned of my delicious #BeetTuesday recipes they immediately called my at my compound and asked me to come to Spain to make a delicious meal for them using beets. I, of course, agreed and climbed into my rocket ship for the trip to Spain.

On the way there, I looked out of my rocket ship’s window at space and decided I would make a beet recipe using an outer space theme! I tried and I tried to think of a beet thing from our SOLAR SYSTEM but I kept coming up blank but then I remembered one of my FAVORITE galaxies Betelgeuse and the wonderful documentary the director Tim Burton made about life on one of its planets!

If you are an avid film buff like me, you will recall that the character Lydia has a thing for food with a lot of MSG. (In case you are not a famous chemist and scientist like me, MSG is MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, a delicious salt-like substance that is mined on the dark side of the mood. In ancient times, an alien race gifted this tasty treasure to mankind!)

So what will I make with BEETS and MSG that based on my trip to Spain? Why Beet Encebollado of course!

Ingredients

• One TEASPOON of vinegar AND lemon juice - these are both astringents (I think) and so will give the beets and unique stringy taste)
• FIVE TABLESPOONS of MSG - this dish is very tasty and MSG will ENHANCE the flavor, Si, por favor!
• 10 dried oregano leaves - when I work with oregano it is very hard to piece the leaves back together. I find having a magnifying glass or microscope on hand is very helpful!
• A bunch of CORN OIL - I get a bunch of corn on the cob (the best, the very best you can find) and put it into a food processor and blend the heck out of it - the sludge you have left is, I’m pretty sure, corn oil)
• 25 lbs of BEETS - cut these up into teeny tiny cubes. Any that are not perfectly symetrical should be discarded.
• 10 lbs of onion rings - fresh or frozen, either kind is fine since you will be cooking them anyway. You may want to consider buying one of my latest (and greatest) inventions, the ANDY LAM ONION ROBOT; I don’t have the time to extol this great piece of machinery but it has a 25 gallon reservoir for artificial tears!
• A little bit of adobe - you can use other clay - or even cement - if you don’t have access to adobe

  Instructions

1. In the biggest dish you have, mix the adobe, the MSG and oregano leaves. Put in the BEETS with the corn oil and toss around like a wild person. Put all of it together and put it in the icebox for 3,600 - 43,200 seconds to marinate.
2. Put some of your corn oil in a great big frying pan and put in the beets and all the other stuff and put it over some heat for 600 seconds.
3. Put the beets onto a plate (or plates) and put the other stuff on top of them.
4. ENJOY!

And there you have it, a dish fit for a VACA REAL! The next time you are in Spain you should try this - and if you aren’t in Spain you should make this yourself at home using these easy steps I have given you! I love #BEETTUESDAY!

With a cancion en mi corazon and some remolacha en mi vientre, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

Etruscan-Style Beet Balls!

A very old statue, maybe of my ETRUSCAN ancestor!

Good friends and fellow inhabitants of this planet Earth! I write today as I do every Tuesday to bring you the glad tiding of #BeetTuesday. This is, as you no doubt know, a celebration of this most noble of all root vegetables! The lord of the beta vulgaris clan! The monarch of the conditiva kingdom!

Is there any sight that can cause tears to well up faster than a freshly pulled beet? Still clodded with dark rich Earth! Longing to be sliced and made into any of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 delicious recipes? Obviously the answer is”no” or I wouldn't have asked the question. For a man of my ilk and standing (and now FEMINIST HERO OF THE WORLD) to devote even a fraction of my mighty mind to a subject automatically confers incredible weight and gravitas and importance to said subject, which, in this case is beets.

For today's delicious concoction I rifled through a million musty manuscripts all faded and mottled with mold until I found just what I was looking for! An ancient Etruscan recipe that has certainly passed through millions of hands from the olden days to today. I think once you have tried it you will be pleasantly amazed!

Why an Etruscan recipe? Why that's easy! I have learned that I may be Etruscan! In my imagination I remembered being in the land of Etrusca (wherever that is!) and eating these delicious beetballs. They were so good and I felt right at home eating them! Therefore, I deduced, I must be Etruscan myself. I am going to learn more about my heritage soon I hope!

In the meantime, get ready for some beetballs!

Ingredients

• A bunch of beets - I usually start with 1300 or 1500.
• Ibix blood - a few pints should be enough. If you don't have access to Ibix blood here's a workaround that I use: buy a jar of pickles. Throw away the pickles but keep the brine. Mix in some red food coloring. Easy!
• Two lbs of sawdust - the finest you can afford.
• A lot of herbs and spices - everyone has their favorites but I use anise, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, fennel, mace, sugar (use beet sugar if you can get it) and marijuana. At least a half a lbs of each.

Instructions

1. Chop down the oldest tree you can find.
2. Cut the tree into segments about 20 feet long.
3. Hollow out the segments.
4. Stand them up so the open end is facing the sky.
5. Go get a ladder.
6. Climb the ladder.
7. Evenly divide all you beets.
8. Throw some of the beets into the hollowed out tree segments.
9. Pour in you Ibix blood (or red pickle juice).
10. Pour in the sawdust.
11. Add the herbs and spices.
12. Get a power auger.
13. S-L-O-W-L-Y lower the business end of the auger into one of the hollowed out tree segments and turn it on. Lift and drop it into the hollowed out tree segments again and again. (The goal is to turn the ingredients into a thick purple slurry.)
14. Let this slurry sit overnight.
15. The next morning, build a giant fire.
16. Using a melon scoop, form the purple slurry into dainty morsels.
17. Place the purple morsels into a pan. Whatever kind you have will be fine.
18. Put the pan of purple morsels into the fire.
19. Count slowly to 600.
20. Remove the pan.
21. Now the purple slurry will have hardened into delectable beet balls!

Now you will note that I haven't used many modern appliances. That is because I wanted to share with you the Etruscan way from the olden days. If you want you can use kitchen stuff I guess but I don't think the beet balls will taste as good.

So there you have it! An authentic recipe for beet balls. I have made this thousands of times and people totally ADORE them to pieces! I hope your friends will be delighted by this ancient Etruscan dish!

Loving every minute of #BeetTuesday, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

Happy Birthday America! Have a BEETZZA PIE!

A boring non-beet pizza

Happy Independence Day America! Think of it! Two wonderful reasons to celebrate! First, it is America Birthday and second, it’s #BeetTuesday! Now what if there were a way to bring these two super important occasions together? What if I - ANDY LAM! - could make a beet recipe that was truly an “American Original” to demonstrate my fantastic love for AMERICA! Well, that is exactly what I have done with today’s delicious recipe - with a special surprise finish!

First, is there any food in the entire world more American that pizza? Some time I am going to do an in-depth study on the history of pizza but there are some things I can tell you now. First, pizza was invented in AMERICA way back in 1956 at Original Pizza. You’ll notice that the year ends in a six. That’s the same number as the year America was invented. Is that a coincidence? Right! How is that even possible that two things would be founded in years ending in six and not related somehow. Second, there are dozens - maybe even hundreds - of pizza places in America. You can usually recognize them by their giant wedge-shaped neon signs. Finally, the word Pizza is cleverly hidden on one of the US banknotes (i.e. money). I have never been able to find it but a good friend told me about a friend of his who had seen it once. If you find it please let me know!

So we know pizza was invented in America in a year ending in six, that there are many pizza restaurants and that pizza is written on American money. It is truly America’s greatest contribution to the food of the world! But wait, I wondered, could pizza be made even more wonderful with beets? And could it be made even more American with some fancy work with a pair of scissors or a knife? If you know me - ANDY LAM! - you know the answer to both of those questions is going to be YES or I wouldn’t have asked them.

Come on America, let's make us some BEETZZA PIE!

Ingredients

Beets, beets and more beets. No, really, this recipe only calls for beets! But not just any beets!

• One slice of the world’s biggest beet - You will recall that I used my time-travel skills go back to the olde England of 2001 to grab the world’s largest beet. Since then I have been able to use a much shorter duration of time travel to go back a day or two to get the giant beet out of my fridge again and again, cooking with it and then going back to the time right before I cooked it so I could cook it again! This is going to be the “crust” of the Beetzza, see, because pizza crusts are round!
• A small piles of yellow beets - these are shredded to make the “cheese” of the Beetzza, see, because cheese is yellow!
• A small pile of red beets - you are going to puree these to make the “sauce” of the Beetzza, see, because pizza sauce is reddish.
• A small pile of yellow, purple and white heirloom beets - you are going to cut these into different shapes for the “topping” of the Beetzza, see, because pizza toppings come in different shapes!

Directions

1. Take the giant beet and cut a slice of it from the middle (where it is the widest). The world’s largest beet is as big around as a large pizza so it is perfect. Make the slide about ½ of an inch thick, like the thickness of a pizza pie! Place this on a baking sheet or pizza stone.
2. Spread the pureed beets on top of the “crust” - not too much, just enough to be sure to give it that delicious beet flavor!
3. Sprinkle the shredded golden beet “cheese” on the “crust” and “sauce.” Be sure to use a lot of the shredded beets because people love cheesy pizza!
4. Using a knife, cut your variety of colorful beets into fancy shapes. Since today is INDEPENDENCE DAY I cut some of my beets into squares and others into STARS!
5. Arrange the square shapes you cut out in step 4 (see above) into rows to create “stripes” but be sure to leave a blank area in the upper left hand of the beetzza!
6. Arrange the star shapes you cut out in step 4 (see two instructions above) into rows and columns to create the stars you see on OLD GLORY. You can either make a very big beetzza with enough room for 50 stars, or you can make very small stars or you can make a BEETZZA from AMERICA’S PAST by choosing to do fewer stars from a time when there were fewer states.
7. Heat up your oven to 477.594 kelvin.
8. Put the baking sheet (the one with the BEETZZA on it) into the oven. Leave it in the oven for about 750 seconds.
9. Remove and slice and serve and enjoy!

Now I mentioned a “surprise” finish and here it is! Get 241 firecrackers. (Use small ones because you will probably be doing this indoors.) Arrange them on the BEETZZA but sticking them in like candles on a birthday cake. It will take some practice and a steady hand to light all of the “candles” at once but it’s totally worth the effort! Quickly, carry the BEETZZA into the dining hall so everyone can sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to AMERICA before the “candles” explode! As you can imagine, this is a huge hit and I will be that your friends and family and loved ones will love this super fun and special way to celebrate the birth of AMERICA and the wonderfulness of BEETS and the AMERICAN CLASSIC - PIZZA - all rolled into one wonderful meal!

Wishing AMERICA a HAPPY BIRTHDAY (And #BeetTuesday!) I am . . .

ANDY LAM!

Beet Tacos? Oh Yeah!

Beets: Nature's Perfect Food!

It’s Tuesday world and that means one thing! #BeetTuesday and another awesome recipe! Today I decided to look “South of the Border” to come up with a tasty treat that all of your people — henchmen,compatriots, confederates, fellow travelers, co-conspirators, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — will totally love! 

BEET TACOS!

I, ANDY LAM!, make it a point to eat several tacos each and every day. I think they are one of the things I do that makes me the successful person I am. There are a lot of things you can eat: apples, BEETS, cantaloupes, dates, eggplants, fromage, grapes, haddock, ice cream, jello, kumquats, limes, mangos, Nilla Wafers, olives, pancakes, quinces, radishes, straw, TACOS, udon, vanilla beans, walrus meat, xanthan gum, Yodels and Zwieback toast. Of all of these — and so many more — the taco is, in many ways, the most nobel. It is small, self-contained and as tasty as all get out!

One of the most wonderful things about the taco is that you can put anything you want in it. Here, try this out: close your eyes. Now imagine a TACO. Now imaging anything you want to eat. Now imagine whatever it is that you want to eat in a TACO. Now imagine yourself eating this TACO. OMG, isn’t it so good!

Now open your eyes and read the recipe below for your dreams to come true. This beet TACO is really tasty and I think you will love it!

Ingredients

• - 3/4 cup peanut oil — I didn’t have any peanut oil but I did have some peanut butter, which includes peanut oil. Frankly, it’s the same difference.
• - 12 (6-inch) yellow corn tortillas — I also add a quarter cup of freshly popped popcorn. It gives the TACO a little more pizzazz! 
• - Salt for seasoning, plus 1 teaspoon for the beets
• - 1 medium onion, chopped — as always, be prepared to cry working with these fellows!
• - 16 ounces ground beets — BTW, 16 ounces is also a pound so if you have a pound of beets you are ok.
• - 2 cloves crushed into a fine powder
• - 2/3 cup beet juice
• - 6 ounces panela cheese — I don’t know what kind of cheese this is. You should just use whatever cheese you have. I found an old cheese ball, the kind with nuts all over it, in the back of the fridge.
• - 1/2 a peck of pickled jalapeno peppers — this is what makes it spicy and this is a LOT of peppers so it will be a LOT spicy!
• - 1 cup shredded iceberg lettuce — I just used crushed ice and it seemed to be fine.
• - 1 GIANT tomato, seeded and chopped, chopped and seeded, crushed like the ice, so red and good!
• - 1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves — some people think this tastes like soap. I wondered how people knew this so I decided to do an experiment. First, I ate a pound of cilantro. It was good. Then I got four bars of Irish Spring soap. I ate them too. It was not good. Cilantro does not taste like soap.
• - 2 tablespoons chili powder — I don’t know why but I don’t use this. Does it ever do anything?
• - 10 tablespoons ground cumin — I like cumin a lot so I put a lot into my BEET TACOS!
• - 2 teaspoons cornstarch — darn, I was out of this but I did have a small can of creamed corn. Same same!
• - 1 1/2 teaspoons hot, smoky, steamy paprika — this can be substituted with liquid smoke if you have it.
• - 10 teaspoons ground coriander — another yummy spice! Go crazy with it!
• - 12 teaspoons cayenne pepper — this will give your tacos an extra kick!

Directions

Roll out some aluminum foil. I don’t have foil but I do have a metallurgist and I asked her to make me some thin sheets to put the TACO shells onto. I don’t really know why. I put the shells in the foil sheets and fold them into a U. This makes an opening at the top that you can fill with stuff, and sides that you can hold when you put the TACO in your mouth.

Heat the oven to 395 degrees K.

Heat up the peanut butter in a cast iron skillet over medium heat until it reaches 450 degrees K, about 300 seconds. 

Put a TACO shell into the hot peanut butter for 20 seconds. Flip it, flop it, turn it around! Remove the TACO shell to a cool before taking away the aluminum sheet. Sprinkle the HOT TACO shell with salt. Keep going until you’ve made a bunch of TACO shells.

Next, pour out all but 2 tablespoons of the peanut butter from your skillet and return to medium heat. Once the peanut butter starts to bubble, add the onion and cook until softened and lightly browned around the edges, about 180 to 240 seconds. Add the ground beets, 1 teaspoon salt, and cloves. Cook until browned, about 180 to 240 seconds, stirring occasionally, to break up the beets. Now, quickly! put in the spices and stuff, along with the beet juice. Cook it all together 120 to 180 seconds.

Finally, put the BEET TACOS together! Add the beet mixture to your TACO shells and put in the cheese, the jalapeno peppers, the ice, the tomatoes and the cilantro. Serve immediately and eat right away.

I made these for breakfast this morning and it was AMAZING!

With more beet ideas than you can shake a stick at, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!