Yeah, we've got the beet.

(Farm box dish number three, made with beets from Charlottesville, VA and a spring mix boosted by satin-y lettuce from Harrisonburg, VA.)

Confession: I had never had a beet before a couple weeks ago. Beets on a humble salad? No. Beet chips? Nope. Borscht? Nyet. So when my farm box included a small bunch of beets, it was -- I will admit -- the only item in the box I wasn't sure what to do with (but I suppose that was 60% of the point of getting a farm box).

I settled on roasting the beets in the oven and slicing them over a salad (tossed with toasted pecans and a champagne-mustard vinaigrette), one of the more common ways I'd seen them done on menus. Cooking them was easy enough, just involved throwing them into a foil packet in the oven with some olive oil. They produced the most gorgeous juice, thoroughly staining my chopping board when I cut them up. Though I hadn't eaten the tuber itself before, I've had plenty of juices and candies dyed with beet juice, so I thought I knew what I was in for -- but I was shocked at how brilliant the color was. It swirled beautifully with the sharp white goat cheese I sliced over my salad. Arguably one of the prettier salads I've ever had.

As for the beet itself, it was a bit -- how shall I put this -- cooked. It just tasted hot. I think I did it right, as it was perfectly fork-tender, but somehow it just lacked some sweetness I had been expecting. I've heard that people who don't care for beets should try them raw instead of cooked, so perhaps I'll try that next time. But for now, in terms of my farm box adventures encouraging me to try new things, mission accomplished.