It seems I often center my recipe posts around my husband's quirky food preferences. For his sake, I am sorry. But the truth is in our house a successful recipe has to meet four tough criteria:

1. It has to satisfy my desire for gourmet taste on a casual budget;
2. It has to be acceptable to the four little people picking over it;
3. It has to be healthy; and
4. My husband has to go, "Mmm, wow. This is good!"

And honestly, given my husband's unique palate, the latter is often the toughest medal to win.  And that brings me to beets.

Currently there are two plants in my garden doing me proud: zucchini and basil. The beans are coming on well and I have a myriad of little green tomatoes that promise sweet reward... but surely not for another couple of weeks.

That's not the case with the zucchini and the basil. Both are producing like crazy and when my CSA basket arrived last week with four more zucchinis inside I had an epiphany that soon we would be inundated by a small zucchini army if we weren't careful.

I'm pretty sure that every American household has some form of mac n' cheese that's a family favorite. Both of my grandmothers have their own take on the traditional dish: one bakes hers in the oven until the cheese on top bubbles and turns brown, the other prefers the stove-top method and coats her pasta with a thick creamy sauce.

Prepared either way I can easily eat more than my fair share of the cheesy goodness. Can anyone relate with me or am I alone as a self-labeled mac n' cheese junkie?