In the borscht, sunflower shoots taste earthy and almost like another carb, which works great.
People criticize me for experimenting a lot with my borscht. But I cook it at least twice a month every month, and I made my first borscht when I was 19. It gets old if you don’t change anything. I’ve put all sorts of crazy things in my borscht. Chickpeas, kale, broccoli, yams, heirloom beans, lentils, zucchini, nutritional yeast, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, flax seeds, sausage, green peas. The last two turned out hideous. It was a struggle to push those two borschts down my throat. But I make my borscht without meat, so they are cheap and even if one batch is bad, it’s not a big loss.
When I first met N, he informed me he didn’t like borscht because he wasn’t “into soup a whole lot.” To which I responded that I wasn’t offering soup, I was offering borscht, and anyway where would a Russian person even taste borscht to know what it was like.
And by the way, when I had a severe form of gestational diabetes, my diabetologist said, “No! You can’t have borscht! Your blood sugar will explode!” I didn’t believe her and risked it. And I was right, the borscht did zero damage to my blood sugar. Because my blood is already 70% borscht.
L’chaim!
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