Mom's Harvard Beets Recipe
As part of Maui Health's month-long #JourneyTo5 5 year anniversary celebration, we hosted a weekly Farmers Market at Maui Memorial Medical Center to provide the opportunity for our hard-working caregivers to stock up on fresh, local produce, and products from fresh fruits and vegetables to Hawaiian chili pepper water, coffee, and more.
One of our farmers market vendors, Kīhapai Horticulture, shared their healthy recipe below:
Mom's Harvard Beets
By Kīhapai Horticulture
Ingredients
- 3 medium sized beets
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup white vinegar
- ⅓ cup orange juice (or water, or reserved liquid from cooked beets)
- 1 tbs corn starch
- 2 tbs butter
- ¼ tsp salt
- Pepper
Directions
- Put beets in saucepan and cover with water.
- Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover pan, and cook until tender (~30 minutes).
- Drain beets, let them cool, then slip off skin.
- Slice into bite size pieces.
- Combine sugar, vinegar, orange juice, and corn starch in saucepan.
- Over low to medium heat, add beets, butter, salt and pepper.
- Simmer for about 10 minutes. Serve hot or cold.
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About Kīhapai Horticulture
Their lead farmer, Kamaka, was born and raised in Hana, Maui. He grew up working on his Dad’s papaya and hog farm. As a young adult he worked for many years at Helani Gardens where he learned all about tropical foliage and flower production and landscaping. As they say, “You can take the boy out of the country….”. So in 2007, the 2.5 acre agriculture lot was purchased and the gravitational pull back to farming began. As a true “mom & pop” business, Kamaka's wife, Ann, lends her formal agriculture education and 33 years of experience as an agriculture instructor at the community college to the business. Her interest is in soil health, regenerative practices, and native plants. Their youngest daughter is the lead beekeeper and developed the “Kuaola” honey brand. Their oldest daughter loves plants and lends a hand when she is home. They are blessed to be the stewards of this beautiful ‘āina momona.