Beetroot fritters with tzatziki

Last Friday I went to Oxford to visit my elderly friend Anne. She is an avid reader of The Times, a newspaper which I am not in the habit of buying. Knowing that I love reading about recipes, she offered me The Times Recipe Issue, how could I resist? On the way back from Oxford, I was reading the magazine on the bus, when I came across a lovely recipe for Beetroot and Carrot fritters with dill and yogurt sauce (sorry, can't do the link as you need to be a subscriber to read it online). I knew at once I would like to try it. I have adapted the recipe, changed some quantities and ingredients. I didn't have any dill, but still had some fresh mint in a pot, which I wanted to use.

Beetroot fritters with tzatziki
Ingredients:

2 medium beets (about 230g weight, without skins)
1 medium carrot
2 medium eggs
1tsp Schwartz Perfect Shake/Spanish
1 small onion(about 70g)
vegetable oil for frying
200ml Greek style yogurt
1/2 cucumber, peeled and grated
a few sprigs of mint, finely chopped

Start by grating carrot and beets and finely chopping the onion. Or use the food processor for a faster job. Using hands, squeeze the grated veg. Mix it well with two beatn eggs in a medium bowl. Add the spices and a pinch of salt (or skip the salt altogether).
Heat 4 tbsp of vegetable oil in the frying pan. Make fritters by shaping the veg mix into ovals with your hands. Fry three or four fritters at a time. Add more oil for the next batches. Cook for 3 minutes on each side, then take them out and place on a tray covered with the foil to finish cooking in the oven preheated to 180C. Cook for about 15-20 minutes.

Serve them hot with tzatziki.
For tzatziki, grated the cucumber and squeeze the liquid out, you don't want your dip to be soggy. Mix with the Greek style yogurt and chopped mint.

I have a new kitchen gadget from Russell Hobbs, Illumina Food Processor. The Illumina range is the latest addition to their kitchen gadgets. All the Illumina Colour Control technology has unique colour features. Each gadget from the range has a set of 4 different speeds, and the light ring changes its colour when you choose a different setting for slicing/shredding/grating, dough/cream, blending or chopping/processing. I haven't yet tried all the settings.
This stylish gadget looks quite futuristic. It has a 2.3 litre processing bowl with safety locking lid, which is just the right size, plus a 1.5litre blending jug for making all the healthy smoothies. The titanium coated stainless steel blades are easy to clean (they are also very sharp, so handle with care, I managed to cut my hand while putting the blades away back in the box, so don't do like I did).

It took me literally seconds to grate the vegetables and chop the onion with the food processor.

In this recipe I used Schwartz Perfect Shake/Spanish which is a new addition to Schwartz range of spices and herbs. It is a seasoning blend with smoked paprika, red and green bell peppers, onion granules, garlic granules, dried tomato, rosemary, bay leaves and more. I have tried it with roast butternut squash as well. It adds a lovely kick without being over-spicy.
Of course, if you don't have it, just substitute with your favourite blend of spices.

Adding my recipe to Cooking with Herbs linky on Lavender and Lovage blog, with April's herb being mint.