Borscht du Jour
Recently we had our vegetables delivered, which is always "produce surprise," and I was pleased to find beets in the box. With the tops on! Now, whenever I get beets in their entirety, the following monologue passes through my head:

All right, beet greens! They're so yummy, and good for you! Now, how do you cook them again? Could just saute them, I guess, but that's kind of boring . . . ummm . . . What should I do with these things, anyway? Chop them up fine and throw them in the borscht? That seems like a bit of a waste . . . hmmm . . .

Of course, there are things you can do with beets besides borscht, but really, I only ever do borscht. It's great, because it's an excellent soup in which to dispose of leftovers, as long as they aren't too distinctively seasoned. Carrots, potatoes, leftover roast, wilting greens, aging cabbage, woody celery, that half-tin of diced tomatoes that's been kicking around - shred or dice them all finely, cook the bejeezus out of them in a sturdy beef (oh, all right, you can use vegetable stock if you must) broth, with the beets, also shredded, and finish it off with some sour cream. The beets camouflage everything else. The best flavorings for your stock are star anise (fish it out before serving, though), caraway, black pepper, garlic, and whatever else you particularly like.

None of this has anything to do with beet greens. Right! There is something interesting and kind of elegant that can be done with them, actually, and I don't recall seeing the recipe anywhere (even - gasp - on the internet), except my Mom's kitchen. Apparently she got it from a Ukrainian friend. For the uninitiated, in Manitoba "Ukrainian" usually means "somebody whose ancestors came here from the Ukraine about the same time mine left Ireland and England, i.e. the late nineteenth century." Anyway, here's the recipe.

Make dough for dinner rolls, about 20 rolls' worth (I halved a recipe for 36 rolls, and put the reduced recipe below). At the point where you would normally make the rolls out of the big ball of risen dough, preheat the oven to 350 F and shape the dough into little cylinders about 2-2.5 inches long and as thick as a breakfast sausage. Wrap each of these very loosely in a beet leaf, or a section of beet leaf if the leaves are huge. You should end up with roughly 24 rolls. Place the wrapped pieces in a deep baking dish (or as many dishes as it takes) with lots of space around them, and be sure that the seam or end of the beet leaf is down. Set the dish aside for the rolls to rise, and make a very thin cream sauce. This can be done by just melting two Tbsps of butter, whisking in two Tbsps of white flour, removing the pan from the heat, whisking in two cups of cold milk, and returning the pan to the heat just long enough for it to begin to thicken. Your sauce should be no thicker than unwhipped whipping cream, or even coffee cream. If it seems too thick, just mix in more milk. Sprinkle the rolls liberally with dill (fresh chopped for preference, but dried works fine) and pour the cream sauce over. You need enough sauce to fill the pans at least half an inch, preferably more. Now stick the pan in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the ends of the rolls (what you can see besides beet leaf) are a nice golden brown, and the cream sauce is seriously thick and bubbly. I served this with (leftover) borscht and very simple pan-fried beef sausages with onions, and it seemed like a haute take on peasant food, when really it was pretty much just peasant food. They can also be frozen once wrapped, but before the sauce and all, and then just baked the same way once thawed.

Dinner rolls (makes 18 or so)
1 pkg dry yeast (or 2.25 Tbsps)
1/2 Tbsp sugar (1.5 tsp)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
2 lightly beaten eggs
1/3 cup sugar
roughly 2.5 cups white flour
Mix the first three ingredients and set aside. Scald the milk, add the butter, and let it cool to lukewarm. Mix in the eggs, the remaining sugar, and the salt. Add to this the yeast mixture, and pour all this into a well in the middle of 2 cups of the flour, which by now is in a large mixing bowl. Mix it all well, and add more flour till you have a soft dough. Turn out on a floured surface and knead until smooth (which is to say, not forever like you do with some breads). Set in a greased bowl, run a greased hand over the top of the dough, cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap, and let rise till doubled (about an hour). Punch down and either make the above recipe or shape the dough into rolls, place in a greased pan or two and let rise till again doubled (more like 1/2 hour this time), and bake at 400 F until golden brown - about 15 minutes. These are lovely, rich, slightly sweet dinner rolls.