Hot Weather Cool Dip

When the weather gets warmer I find myself trying to keep the house as cool as possible and not do lots of cooking in my oven. My husband and children have a "hot food" complex anyway and would rather wait till it is room temperature than eat it hot, so around here I do quite a bit of make ahead meals and bulk cooking so we have leftovers. I find I spend less time in my kitchen and more time with my children this way as I generally only cook 3x a week. I call this a win-win situation!

Anyway for me and the kids at home I like to make sure they get a love of vegetables early so we try and incorporate them into our lunches every day. While my little girl will down a salad with me and love it, my one year old son right now has an aversion to leafy greens. So one of the easiest ways for me to get everyone munching on veggies at lunch is to have some healthy, homemade dip for them to dunk their favorite veggies in.

One of our favorite dips for lunch is what my daughter calls "purple dip". We discovered this one when a friend brought it over for part of a meal while I was recovering from Boaz's birth. I craved red beets during that pregnancy and just devoured them any way they were prepared. They are packed with nutrition, in fact some of the benefits of eating red beets are rather impressive,

• High in antioxidants, (they are great for cellular cleansing and detoxification)
• Studies have shown them to prevent cancer
• Anti-inflammatory
• Energy and brain booster
• High in vitamin C, fiber, potassium, manganese, b-foliate and iron

Purple dip is like a hummis in texture so it is great for veggies and pita/naan bread. I have doubled the recipe so that I can have this in the refrigerator all week for a quick and healthy lunch option. Like I mentioned before lunch always surprises me and I end up scrambling to pull it together, dips help a lot. You could halve it if you don't want so much.

"Purple" Beet Dip
Gluten-free, Vegan

12 servings

• 12 oz of red beets
• One large white potato
• 3/4 Cup olive oil
• 1/2 Cup walnuts, chopped
• 1/4 Cup red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

Put your red beets and potato in a pot, cover with water and put them on the stove to boil. I find I usually need to boil mine an hour till soft enough to poke with a knife. 

Take the red beets and potato and put them in ice or cold water, rub the skins off, roughly chop them and transfer to a food processor.

Add the remaining ingredients to the food processor and blend till smooth. Put dip in dish and chill before serving.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we do and keep cool as the weather gets warmer!
       

                                                                   The Farmer in the Dell