Roasted Beets in Mustard Cream Sauce

With the farmers' markets full of nice, small beets, this is a great time to try this dish. The cream and Dijon mustard reduce down to a wonderful and rich dressing to hearty and warm roasted beets. It's a very pretty dish as well, as the cream will take on the colors of the beet types you add it to.

Leaving the root tail and the leaf stems on the beets while you cook them leaves an easier route to peeling them once they're done. Without that, you'll be tearing your hair out while trying to get their tough skins off.

• 25 small beets of assorted colors
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 1 tblspn chopped fresh thyme

Add beets of like colors to a tin foil pouch. Drizzle them with oil and let them bake in a 400 degree oven for about 50 minutes. Once tender, open the foil and skin them when cool enough. Don't wait too long or that job gets harder!

Combine cream, mustard and thyme in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer. Reduce it to a level you like (I'd recommend letting it reduce by one half of a cup).

Place the beets into a glass cooking dish large enough to hold them. Season them with salt and pepper, then add cream. Bake until the sauce is bubbling (takes around 25 minutes).

From: Bon Appetit magazine, September 2008