If you really want to know, I’m colorblind. Blue looks like purple. Green looks like yellow looks like orange. Red looks like brown looks like dark green. I get confused a lot. The great thing about it all is that two contrasting colors that might look dull to my friends sometimes look incredible to me and make me say “woah!” The bad news is that I cannot for the life of me spot a bright red poppy in a green summer meadow. The reason I am telling you all of this is because I was just staring at the photograph I’m posting for this recipe, and for a moment felt pretty confident about recognizing the colors of the ingredients: green, red, white, brown. Then I looked out the window and saw the surrounding mountains, valleys, and sky in the morning light and my color-confidence faded. Is that field macaroni and cheese or burnt sienna? Anyway, to the recipe.

I was first introduced to vegetable mashes when reading one of Mollie Katzen’s recipe books. The dish I’m presenting today is inspired by her culinary creativity. With that said, I’ll introduce today’s tartine layer by layer, from the ground up. By the way, tartine is just a fancy French word for an open-face sandwich. Not only does it sound elegant, it also makes the title of my recipe a bit shorter ¯\(ツ)/¯

At the base of this dish is a slice of sourdough bread. Make some or buy some, just find some bread with a strong flavor. You might want to toast the slices of bread so that all of the toppings have a solid base to sit upon.

First on the slice of bread is a layer of cream cheese. The creamy flavor blends nicely with the strong tastes of the beet mash and pistachio crumble.

Next up, the main character. I consider the beet mash to be the star of the show. Beets have a sweet earthy flavor. Alone they can sometimes taste like a mild candy bar handmade by Mother Nature herself. You’ll roast the beets in the oven. More than once have I lost patience while roasting beets. Don’t do it. Leave them in until they are fork-tender. In the recipe I say to roast them for about one hour, but it really depends on the size of your beets. If you want to make things easier on yourself, buy small to medium sized beets and you’ll find your cooking time to be closer to one hour. Large beets take forever, yes they do.

So to the sweet, roasted beets you will be adding some shallot, garlic, and cayenne pepper. This results in a sweet and slightly spicy flavor combination. Pair that with the creamy cream cheese and you’ll find that nothing can go wrong.

The pistachio crumble consists of pistachios, olive oil, basil, and a touch of salt. It all gets blended and crushed into a bright, coarse crumble that sits proudly on top of the dark beet mash. Just remember to not over-blend the pistachio mixture. You want a crumble, not a paste.

Finish the whole thing off with a few radish slices positioned in the upper corner of each tartine. I usually serve this with some soft goat cheese. Enjoy!