I love to hear the beet stories. The one I hear the most starts, “I never really cooked beets before…” and usually ends with, “We really like them now!” There’s been a few stories of mistaking some variety as a radish or turnip – but even those usually work out 🙂 Beets are a great source of micronutrients and phytosterols…and as Glenn is a great steward of the soils on this farm, the minerals are actually in the vegetable.
Pickled Beets
- 4 cups vinegar
- 1 1/2 tsp pickling salt
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 cups water
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 12 cloves
- 1 tsp pickling spice
Boil beets till done, trim ends and slip skins, slice 1/4 inch pieces. Combine all the ingredients (except beets, bring to boil. Add the beets and simmer 5 minutes. Fill hot jars with beets, leaving 1/2 inch head space, pour vinegar solution over top, leaving 1/2” head space. Wipe rims, screw on lids and process in water bath 30 minutes for pints. You could just put these in the fridge without processing. Use your beet juice to pickle your peeled hard-boiled eggs 🙂
Roasted Beets
Trim and cut the beets into 1″- 2″ pieces. I don’t trim much, just the REALLY rough parts. To marinate toss them with olive oil and any combo of herbs – dried or fresh, the “easy” part is that you use whatever you have. Tonight I did them with oil, salt, lots of black pepper, a little bit of crushed red pepper, lemon juice and grated lemon zest (I’m a big zester) and then spread them out on a glass dish or baking pan (glass gets hotter in my opinion) and roast at 400 for an hour or so. Toss mid roasting once or twice if you remember. The sour lemon juice and bitter lemon rind turned out to be wonderful compliments to the sweet beets. It’s true, glass does get hotter and is perfect for roasting veggies at high heats for the best caramelized flavor.
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