I’ve been doing a good bit of cooking since I got back from my Christmas trip: squash and black bean empanadas, vegan crepes with fruit, chickpea curry.

Today I decided to try something new, the recipe just before the empanadas in Veganomicon: Autumn Latkes. These are latkes made with carrot, sweet potato, and beet shreds rather than plain potato shreds. I am generally a bit of a disaster at frying things, and these vegetables do not have as much native starch as plain potatoes do, so I was quite concerned. But I made small ones and they turned out fine. They’re quite toothsome compared to plain potato latkes, which tend to get a bit fluffy in the middle as the heat makes them fall apart and bind. They’re also sweet and flavorful. Definitely a great way to try beets if you, like me, are a tad ambivalent about their flavor.

The recipe lists the quantities (2 cups of beets, 1 cup each of the orange vegetables) but also gives numbers of vegetable required. I’m glad it included the quantities, because I apparently have a funny idea of what an “average size beet” is. Three of them are supposed to make two cups of shredded material. I had two beets: one that appeared “normal” to me, and one that was ginormous. Dave kindly dubbed them the Beet of Doom and the Harbinger of the Apocalypse. The Harbinger alone made 2 1/2 cups of shredded material. I have no idea what I’m going to do with the Beet of Doom, but I can say that the latkes don’t seem to have been suffered from their high content of Harbinging.

Isa’s recipe says to serve them hot, but although I tasted a few, I’m planning to eat them as leftovers, just reheating them in the toaster oven. I made her Roasted Applesauce from Vegan with a Vengeance to go with them, and added green beans for a healthful side. I’m looking forward to lunch tomorrow! I’ll try to post a photo, since I haven’t done that in a while.