Vivid in color and sweet in taste – beets are wonderful – partially due to the fact that they contain more sucrose than any other vegetable!
Selection and Storage:
Always choose beets with stems, and if possible, leaves attached. These should look fresh and bright – a sign that they have been recently harvested. Choose bulbs with smooth, tight skin. Use the leaves and stems within 2 days. Trimmed beet bulbs will store for several weeks in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
Culinary Uses:
Beets are unavoidably messy, leaving vivid, hard-to-remove trails of deep red on whatever their juices touch.
Cut off stems and leaves, these can be used many spinach or swiss chard recipes. Scrub beets to remove dirt before cooking. Beets can be boiled, roasted or steamed. It is advisable to cook them in their skins, as this preserves both flavor and color. Roasting or baking results in the sweetest, most intense flavor. Once tender, beets can be sliced, dices, or cut into wedges and used in numerous recipes. Not all recipes require beets to be precooked though, such as crisp-frying them into chips or grating into a delicious winter salad.
Information from: The Produce Bible by Leanne Kitchen.