Being the research expert she is, a recipe for pickled beets was located. Next came planting. We planted two rows of beets, but being our first year with beets, we planted them too close together. They came up and we had a lot to can, but because they were so close together they were smaller than a baseball. This did not effect the taste however.
We tried several different takes on the recipe. We tried some with the pickle spice in a bag to flavor the juice. We tried some with the pickle spice loose in the jar. We tried some with cinnamon sticks in the jar. These made the beets very bitter. We settled on jars with the pickle spice loose in the jar.
Local people remember last summer, a Derecho storm hit knocking out electricity for about a week. This was the week we planned to can the beets, so we used the burner on the gas grill, a double burner gas stove, a Coleman camp stove, and kept on canning.
This year we learned, and spread the seeds out in the row when we planted them. Our results were some larger beets.
We boiled the beets for about 45 minutes, just long enough to loosen the skin from the meat, then dumped them in the sink and pulled the skin off. We diced the beets into large chunks and filled our jars. We covered the beets with a sugar juice with pickling spice and hot water bathed them for 45 minutes. One bushel yielded us twenty five quart jars of pickled beets.
Pickled beets are an acquired taste apparently, you either love them or you hate them. We replanted another row of beets after we pulled these, so you can guess which side we come down on. One additional perk to making your own pickled beets, and having chickens, is you get to make all the pickled eggs you care to eat.
The Common Man is a big fan of a veteran owned and operated company called Ranger Up, and they recently posted an article on the benefits of beets in your diet if you are a health nut type. Their post spawned this post. Give their article a read, if you got free time like that Just Beet It
K&K
Great pictures. Beets are not my thing, but every time I see these pictures, I want to change my mind.
ReplyDeleteOh, and FIRST!
Didn't we include a jar in the goody basket? If we did and it has a "12c" on the lid, toss em. They are nasty bitter
DeleteLove us some beets here at Kniskern Knoll. I plant beets in a square-foot pattern, plenty of space to grow, and 9 beets per square foot. A little more challenging to plant initially, but well worth the extra harvest. And when they get going, they crowd out the weeds. So with mulching, no weeding.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea James, we may have to try that next year. Planting in rows is good but its almost impossible to keep grass and weeds out of the row. It don't change the flavor, but my OCD is visual, and weeds just wreck the look.
ReplyDelete