Borscht, and Potato Casserole

(Sorry, Sarah, that I ended up making it alone. We'll have to have the authentic version sometime)

Ryan and I planted 5 rows of beets. Tons, you might think, but since our garden gets minimal sunlight at the very end of the summer the largest ones were still only about as big as a golf ball. But, I peeled all 40+ of them up and made my own version of Borscht (which I've never made before but got the jist from some recipes online)

All my little beets made about 2 cups worth. This is what I did, and Ryan liked it a lot:

MY VERSION OF BORSCHT:

2 cups water
2 cups chopped beets
2 cups chopped carrots
1/2 onion chopped (I had about 10 baby onions)
1/4 cup chives or green onions chopped (like I said, my onions didn't grow much either... so I had to utilize the entire plant)
2 garlic cloves chopped

all this is boiling whilst I continue chopping and peeling miniscule beets

1/3 cup chopped beet tops (kind of like swiss chard, I'm told)
1/4 cabbage chopped into tiny slices
1 beef steak chopped in inch cubes
I also sliced up three pieces of ham lunch meat into small pieces.
1 can stewed tomatoes (THE FIRST TIME RYAN'S EATEN TOMATOES WILLINGLY SINCE HE TOLD ME HE DOESN'T LIKE THEM... SINCE EVERYTHING WAS RED ANYWAYS FROM THE BEETS, HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW, AND I DIDN'T TELL HIM! BUWAHAHAHA!)
3 cubes chicken boulion.

Probably boiled all this for 40-60 minutes. I just kept on adding a little water when it would boil off.

Now... since most recipes called for potatoes, but I didn't have any, I just made some instant mashed potatoes and mixed them in with it. It turned it all pink and pretty-like.


POTATO CASSEROLE:
Ryan gets after me, because when I get stressed or busy, I forget to eat (also, I'm lazier about cooking for myself than I am about cooking for him... and since he liked the borscht so much he'd taken it for lunch). This was fast, um... probably high in calories, and had a little of every group:

3 cups made Instant potatoes
1 can corn
1 handful shredded cheddar cheese
1 scoop cottage cheese
some milk
some carrots chopped
a handful of some dried refried bean flakes which Ryan's Mom got us
2 scoops cream of chicken soup
2 garlic cloves chopped (I boiled them when I heated the water for the potatoes)
3 slices ham lunch meat chopped

And, there you go (said in the accent of the Dad from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding")