A Late Harvest of Beets

I normally plant beets in the fall and harvest them in very early spring.  We really like beets around our house.  We plant two different varieties - Bull's Blood Beets and Detroit Red Beets.  In the past we've also planted Golden Beets and Chioggia Beets (looks like a peppermint candy when you cut it in half).  This year the beets were up and out of the ground when we got a really hard freeze.  The freeze pretty much wiped out half the crop.  We couldn't have that, now could we?  So we replanted.  We've been eating the surviving beets from the freeze by roasting them in the oven.  Now, the later planted beets are coming in as well.

Tricia picked a basket full the other day (along with a couple of big radishes).  We talked about pickling some beets so we can enjoy them later.  Growing up, when we would have family gatherings, there was always a table with different things for snacking.  Things like black olives, sliced pickles, a tiny whole pickle called a gherkin, pickled okra and, last but not least, pickled beets.  I always liked pickled beets.  They are so sweet and tangy with the vinegar and cloves in the recipe.

Beets are sweet by themselves, but most pickled beet recipes call for added sugar.  My wife is not a fan of added sugar.  In fact, if a cake or cookie recipe calls for a cup of sugar, she's only putting a half of cup, you can take that to the bank.  She always tells me, "See, it's still good."  And my response is, "Yeah, but it coulda been better!"

Well, lo and behold, she found a recipe for pickled beets with no added sugar.  I wasn't going to participate in that heresy, but I heard her banging around in the kitchen and heard the pop of the lids and she pickled the beets... with no added sugar.

We'll stock up the pantry with these deep red beets.

I will let you know how they taste when we open a lid to try them out.  We've been rotating the stock out of the pantry and just the other day, we popped the lid on a quart of pickled beets that had been in the pantry since 2017.  The color had faded.  They weren't the bright, deep red you see above.  They were a dull, faded purple color.  Not very appetizing looking.  But they were sealed up tight and I figured we'd try them.  They were delicious!  We will see how this fresh batch turns out.

Bumby's Beet Salad

We had a bumper crop of beets from the fall garden this past year.  The variety we plant is called "Bull's Blood" because even the leaves of the plant have dark red leaves, similar to the color of bull's blood, I suppose. This past week we harvested our last one.  We have been slicing them and roasting them in the oven on most nights.  So good!  We love beets, and they are supposed to be really good for you.

We have also pickled the beets, made beet kvaas, and borscht, but we were looking for other recipes to use up our bumper crop of beets. Tricia was talking to my Mom on the phone and got a recipe for a beet salad.  This beet salad brought back a lot of memories for us and we thought we'd share.  My maternal grandmother (we affectionately called her Bumby) always made this salad.  She was big on different types of salads: cucumber salad, plates with olives, pickled okra, pickled beets, peppers, etc. Her beet salad was one of my favorites.

We will call them "Bumby Beet Salad".

Peel, cut up, and boil beets with salt and pepper.  Drain them.  Then cover beets with white vinegar and boil again - add more pepper, if needed. 

Then set aside to cool.  This essentially pickles the beets quickly.  Tear up some lettuce in a bowl.

Add thinly sliced red or white onion and add cut up slices or chunks of beets.

Put it all in a bowl.

Mix with 1 or 2 Tablespoons of mayonnaise (blechhh! - I don't like mayo at all, but this salad is still good - I just don't think about the fact that I know it's in there!).

Stir it up and add additional seasoning, if needed.

The tangy pickled beets stand in contrast with the crunchy flavorful onions and crisp lettuce and provide a really nice side salad for any meal.  We have made several of these and have really enjoyed them.  Reminds me of Sunday meals after church at Bumby's house and puts a nostalgic smile on my face!

Making Pickled Beets

Many people - especially kids - make faces and turn up their noses when you talk about beets. Beets just aren't their favorite thing. I can understand that.  There are certain things that I'm not crazy about eating.  Turnips, for instance.  I happen to really like beets.  I like them cooked in broth.  I really like them roasted in the oven with olive oil.  But I'll show you tonight a way to prepare them that most everyone can enjoy.  Pickled beets.  My grandmother we called "Bumby" always served pickled beets as an appetizer at Sunday dinner and on special occasions.  I liked them as a kid and I still prepare and eat them pickled today.

First, you gotta pick 'em.  I grow two types of beets.  This is a bull's blood beets. The leaves look the color of bull's blood, I suppose.

Bull's Blood Beets

This is a Chioggia Beet.  It originates from Italy, and I'll show you something neat about this variety in a minute.

Chioggia Beets

I picked 10 pounds of fresh beets in a produce bucket since that's what the recipe calls for.

I brought them in and washed them to get all the dirt off of them.

Then I sliced the bottoms and tops off of them.  Chioggia on the left and Bull's Blood on the right.

Then I cut the beets all up - in chunks and slices.  Here's the neat thing I want to show you about Chioggia beets.  When you slice them, they look like a peppermint! You know, just like a starlight mint.  The others behind the "eye-catchers" you see below are the Bull's Blood beets.

If you cut the Chioggias 'long-ways' the red & white designs really stand out!

But enough about what they look like.  Let's make pickled beets, so we can talk about what they taste like.  Obviously, you'll need 10 pounds of beets.  You'll also need a couple of cups of sugar.  I used some pure cane sugar that is grown an hour south and east of here.  The recipe also calls for 1 Tablespoon of kosher salt, a quart of white vinegar and 1/4 cup of whole cloves.

A quick side-note about cloves.  I love the way they smell.  If I inhale deeply in the container of cloves, it reminds me of my childhood.  When I was a boy, my grandmother, Bumby, showed me how to make a craft with cloves.  It is a simple craft project that involves an orange and a bunch of cloves.  She had me press the pointed end of the cloves into the orange until it was pressed all the way in.  We repeated that with a bunch of cloves all over the orange until you couldn't even see the orange anymore.  It was solid cloves.  It was a sachet, I think you call it, to be placed in a closet or drawer to make everything smell nice.  Over time the orange got smaller and smaller, but it smelled GREAT!

Sorry for the diversion.  Back to making pickled beets.  Here are the ingredients ready to go.

Put the 10 pounds of cut up beets in a pot of water and bring to a boil, cooking for about 15 minutes or until they are tender.  I tested the tenderness with a fork.  When I could press the fork in easily, they are done.  Pull out 2 cups of the "beet water" to save for later.

Sterilize your jars, lids, and rings in boiling water.  In a separate pot (I made a big mess in the kitchen), add the sugar, vinegar, beet water, and salt and bring it to a boil.  While you are waiting for this to boil, fill your jars with beets.  Then pour the hot brine over the beets in the jar using a canning funnel.

Before putting the lids on, sprinkle the cloves and then seal up the jars.

Put a rack in the bottom of a stockpot so that the jars aren't touching the bottom and bring the water to a boil.  Put your jars of beets in the boiling water, making sure that the tops of the jars are covered.  When the water returns to a boil set your timer for 10 minutes as that is how long you will process them.

Pull them out and let them cool.  My pickled beets don't look traditional as the Chioggias are white and aren't the traditional deep red color, but that's okay with me.  They still taste great!

We'll snack on these before meal time and on special occasions.  Tasty pickled beets.  Nothing goes to waste.  The beet tops and peels get fed to the milk cows. They love the sweetness just like we do, I assume.  I even found an interesting use for the boiling water that I'll show you the next time I post.

Making (Lacto-fermented) Pickled Beets

We've made a red velvet cake with our beets, eaten the beet greens, steamed them in broth, roasted them in the oven with olive oil, and made beet kvass.  One more thing we usually do with them is pickle them.  In the past, we usually pickle them in apple cider vinegar, red onions, with cloves.  They are delicious, and we serve them as a cold appetizer before meals along with pickled okra and black olives.

Today we're going to use the very last of the Bull's Blood Beets to make pickled beets, but we are going to make them using a recipe out of Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions Cookbook that uses lacto-fermentation.  We harvested the last of the beets.

Bull's Blood Beets

Beets aren't a very pretty vegetable like green beans or swiss chard.  They look dull and boring in the bucket.

Bucket o' Beets

Bring the beets inside, poke them with a fork in several places and put them in a tray in the oven and bake them at 300 degrees F for 3 hours or until they are soft through and through when you stick a fork in them. Then go ahead and peel them, exposing the deep, rich, red color.

Baked Beets

Slice the beets, julienne style, in 1/4 inch slices.

Baked Beets - Julienne style

Put them in a quart jar and press them down with a wooden spoon.

Then mix 1 tablespoon sea salt, 4 tablespoons whey (by product of making kefir), and a cup of filtered water, and pour over the beets, filling the jar.

Put the lid and ring on the jar, covering tightly and set aside at room temperature for 3 days.

Sitting at room temperature for 3 days

At the end of 3 days, move into the refrigerator.  I can't tell you how it tastes yet since it is still fermenting and we haven't sampled it yet, but if this is anything like lacto-fermented sauerkraut and gingered carrots that we make using the same basic process, it's gonna be good!  We'll let you know.