If you are like me, and pretty much everyone else in my family, you are not really a beet person.
The secrets of beets, however, are two, and I learned them both in Morocco: first is its incredible color. Its juice is more raspberry than raspberries. It’s stunning.
The second is that you can puree beets with a little sugar and orange juice and produce a beautiful tasty nutritious smoothie drink in the middle of winter, when there are no strawberries to be found…
Just take:
3 red beets
About 1 cup orange juice
¼ cup sugar or honey
Trim stems from the beets and cut off the ends; peel and cut into 1 inch cubes.
Boil the beets in water for 20-25 minutes (the older the beets, the longer they’ll need to cook), till tender.
Drain the beets and add them in a blender and add enough orange juice to cover about half of them. Blend well, adding additional orange juice if necessary to produce a smoothie-like consistency.
Add sugar and/or honey to taste – start with a small amount and add gradually, as the beets and orange juice are surprisingly sweet on their own and don’t need a great deal of sweetener to bring out the flavors.
Serve chilled.
Note: this is also tasty and beautiful when swirled into an avocado smoothie – another Moroccan drink that sounds odd to us but is amazing in reality.
cooking with gaul 
Crazy Anny! Beets are one of my very favorite veggies. And in my opinion, you don’t even have to cook them. Smoothie them raw, or, as I did recently, grate them and toss with some orange slices and a little cider vinegar and a little honey for a deeelicious summery salad in the middle of winter.
this is great timing Anny. One of the few non-disgusting looking veggies around happens to be beets. I need inspiration since unlike Miss. Annie, I am not a natural fan. The cold beet soup my host mom made in Morocco was pretty tasty though…