dinner in july

All those jungly tomato plants in the garden are earning their keep. Seriously.

So is the basil. The potatoes and zucchini are doing their best. Thank you, garden. Thank you bugs and deer and bunnies for feasting elsewhere, at least for today.

And thank you Whole Foods for those one pound plastic boxes of salad greens from California. And herbed tofu and olives and organic avocados from Mexico.

And thank you also to the creative and zany person who discovered beets make chocolate cake extra delicious. I made this recipe during Gabriel's nap, while Frances assembled multi-colored pop bead jewelry for our family. I know the words "beet tea loaf" all in a row are not exactly evocative of dessert, or of anything appetizing for that matter. But trust me, it's great, and a beautiful color too.

I used whole wheat pastry flour and one generous cup of pureed beets (she calls for 1.5 cups loosely packed grated beets). These beets were originally picked by a certain hot and grumbly child at Larriland Farms on the Fourth of July, an event that happened to fall within the two weeks or so that I was cooking out of Jessica Seinfeld's sneaky mom cookbook. So when I brought home many pounds of beets without any particular plan for them, I dutifully followed her lead, roasting and pureeing and freezing them in half cup portions, waiting to be silently slipped into something sweet and pink. Or in this case, reddish-brown.  

I wish I could have popped a bite of this cake into Frances' mouth while she stood in that beet field, sweaty and indignant. Reluctant farmhands, your reward shall come, and in ways you never could have expected.