Beetroots.

What to do with beetroot?

 Lots of people seem to hate them. You don't need to eat them with vinegar. You could just shred or grate them and have them --raw, that is-- in a nice astringent salad with good yoghurt, salt and pepper. Maybe a little caraway seed.

Or mix them with grated fresh horseradish to make one version of the Jewish speciality --this I love --called chrain. It's a powerfully-flavoured accompaniment that goes well with fish or meat. I also like it on a jacket potato. I leaned about this from Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food, which I urge you to read. If you can buy horseradish, great -- but it's not hard to find it growing by the wayside. Check out a good reference text and follow its lead. Oh - the picture above is by Indigo Goat at www.flick'r com Thank you!

You just grate chunk of peeled horseradish and add gradually add sugar, sea salt and lemon juice (you could use vinegar instead) until it tasted good to you. Opinions vary on the proportion of beetroot to horseradish, but I'd use about twice as much beetroot as horseradish. Peel it, grate it and add it. Check for seasoning. That's all. You might want to warn anyone you're feeding about the potency of horseradish as it hits the back of your throat.

Thing is, though, when I hanker after beetroot --and I do, although in my household I am alone in this-- none of this is what I'm after. Here's what does it for me: it's my dream solo tea or midnight feast. Which you may think is weird.

Boil as many beetroots as you think you can consume at any one time or over a few days. I tend to boil them in their skins and then carefully peel them when they are yield well to the point of a knife in their heart (blimey --I'm the Sweeney Todd of beetroot) and have been left to cool down a little. Then, I slice them, sprinkle them with just a little salt and put them in a sandwich with fresh white bread --for some reason it needs to be white.I don't think this works with the plastic stuff, though: it has to be something substantial and with a proper crust. Butter. Possibly a mug of tea. Really, this is winter in front of the fire -- but I had a beetroot sandwich the other day. I'd also be happy with just slices of beetroot on a plate with just a little salt. Possibly I was unusual as a child in liking this scary, garnet vegetable. But then, I've always loved sprouts -- even the ones that got put on in November for Christmas dinner. But sprouts will appear in another chapter!