I grew up eating pickled beets this way and just loved them. In fact, I attribute my lifelong love of beets to this recipe. It’s been many years since my mom or grandma made them, I figured it would be my turn to give it a try. This is the recipe my family used, adapted from the Ball blue Book. (I’m honestly not sure if it’s still in the current edition we have the edition from 1977.) The family adaptation is to leave the cloves and allspice out of it.
In the original recipe, you start with:
- 3 quarts of beets
- 2 cups of sugar
- 2 sticks of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon whole allspice
- 1/2 tablespoon of whole cloves
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/2 cups vinegar (I used white but some folks say cider works too)
- 1 1/2 cups water
I have 4 large beets equivalent of about 1 1/4 quarts, so I just halved the other ingredients.
First you boil the beets until they are tender. This is just about the only time I’ll boil a beet over roasting it. Pictured above are the packed beets peeled, quartered, and sans brine.
To make the brine, add all of the above ingredients except the beets (unless you’re making it with my family adaptation ,which leaves out the allspice and cloves). Next, put the ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a simmer for 15 minutes before pouring it over the beets.
The next step is to process the sterilized jars in your canner for 30 minutes. As these beets are going to be gone quickly (within 2 weeks), I am skipping the processing step and will go with refrigeration as a preservation method. When skipping the processing, give these beets at least a few days (preferably a week) in the fridge before consuming to get the full flavor happening.
I hope you don’t mind that this post is short and sweet, I’m going to get back to working on updating the new CSA|365 website. I hope you’ll enjoy the site’s transformation on New Years Day and beyond!