This soup is so easy to make. Just peel and cut up a few beets, chop up an onion, peel one clove of garlic, and put it all together in a pot with vegetable stock and boil for around an hour. When cooked, puree the soup (I love my immersion blender for this stuff). Adjust the liquid, seasoning and add a tablespoon or two of red wine vinegar to give it some acid. You may need to add a touch of sugar too. (This mainly helps the other flavors come out and to balance it) Add sour cream to taste, but not too much. It doesn't take a lot to make it creamy. Chill until very cold.
For garnishes I just sliced thinly a gold beet I had already cooked (this was really just for looks so you could easily skip it without changing the taste.) Chopped cucumber, hard boiled egg and dill sprigs. I kept the sour cream level in the soup very low so to preserve the super bright color and so that I could float more on the surface, but that's another step you can skip. Serving the soup in a chilled dish is an extra nice touch.
