It's not quite Borscht...

It's Schmorscht!

That only thing we have more of in the kitchen than fresh corn, is fresh beets. I usually just eat them boiled with some butter and salt and pepper, they are a complex flavor that don't require much help. However, I've been dreaming about this Ukrainian place called Veselka in Manhattan that I go to at least once every time I'm there. I always mean to order their Borscht, but somehow always get intrigued by something else (cold cantaloupe soup or the roasted beet and goat cheese salad,) and forget all about it.

This isn't traditional borscht. Such traditional ingredients as cabbage and meat were either not in my kitchen or fell into my "needs to be thawed, forget that!" category. The vegetables are also roughly chopped instead of shredded or pureed. I know it all sounds lazy, but I was already making soup when it was a hundred degrees outside, I didn't want to create more work than I had to. So in honor of Jonah Hill in Knocked Up, we're calling this one Schmorscht (yeah, you know the part.)

On the topic of creating more work than you have to, I've been reading about peoples beet peeling phobias and techniques, and they're just plain silly. I understand boiling them in the skin if you're just going to eat them boiled, the skin rubs off magically with a paper towel. Boiling them for the sole purpose of peeling them? You must be shrooming, it takes a million hours.

This is the point in the show where I share some closely guarded secrets that will just blow your mind. My magical way of peeling beets? It's called, a vegetable peeler! GASP! But my delicate hands! They will become soiled and possibly temporarily stained by that horrible beet juice! Calm down friends, check this out...

Gloves! You can buy a box of ten thousand for a two dollars and an elf ear or something, and they'll protect your precious flowery little hands from stains. I peeled and chopped the beets for this in 10 minutes, that's a whole lot better than waiting for the suckers to boil, and plus, you're cooking the beets in the stock later, you don't need to precook them.

Schmorscht

3 quarts water
3 tbsp. vegetable base (I used Better than Bullion, I hear its better than bullion)
4 medium beets, peeled and diced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3/4 C. water
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 (8 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp. white vinegar
2-3 tsp. white sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Sour Cream, for garnish
Croutons or Bread, for garnish

Combine 3 quarts of water and vegetable base in large pot and bring to a boil. Yup, that's what the base looks like, try not to think too hard on it.

Add beets. Now, there was some question as to how long one should cook the beets for. My sister said, "cook the crap out of them." Sounded like a pretty solid plan to me. I think the last scrap of crap left them after 15 minutes or so, I'm going to leave the final decision up to you though.

When the crap has been sufficiently cooked out of the beets, add your carrots and potatoes (not the onions though, we'll get to them in a minute, they're just in this picture for show.) Continue to cook until the vegetables are tender, another 15 minutes or so. Add can of diced tomatoes.

While your potatoes and carrots are cooking, add oil to pan over medium heat. Add onions and cook until soft. Add tomato paste, garlic, and 3/4 C. of water and stir until combined. Add mixture to soup. Remove soup from heat, add vinegar and sugar, and season with salt and pepper. The amounts of vinegar and listed are a rough estimate, I'm really not entirely sure how much I put in. Again, this is a work in progress here, feel free to experiment with different amounts. Schmorscht is a true symbol of freedom... like the eagle and um... putting bacon on donuts.

Garnish with sour cream and bread of choice. Remember that focaccia bread? Its stale remains became the croutons.

5 minutes later (seriously, I think I set a record) the bowl looked like this.

And I looked like this. Schmorscht coma. If you plan on eating this, use caution when operating heavy machinery.

Man that was good. Man it made a lot. It's going in my freezer if I remember to call home and ask them to put it in the freezer. I'm off for the weekend, but perhaps if you're lucky, I'll report back with tales and pictures of delicious food from the Minnesota State Fair (Aug 26th - Sept 6th) pre-game show, the Dakota County Fair (hey, don't look at me like that, the weekends don't count remember?)

And um, here's another picture of beets, just because It simultaneously makes me smile and creeps me out...

Beets on parade!