Pickled beets are one of my favorite things. Up until about 15 years ago, there was no way I’d try a beet. Then for some crazy reason, I planted beets in the garden. I still think they’re one of the most amazing things I plant. Start with a little rough seed, plant it and get a beet. Where does all that red beet “blood” come from? How does that seed turn into so much juice? When I first grew them, I peeled them and was sitting them directly on a laminate countertop and I can tell you . . it’s not easy getting beet juice stains off a light blue countertop!
This morning I pulled up about 1/4 of the beets out of the garden. I’ll be able to plant the fall beets in just a little more than a month so I need to get the current crop out of the ground and pickled. We’re pretty lucky to be able to have beets and carrots growing/producing almost year round. Come to think of it . . we’re just pretty lucky folks! 🙂
Beets
The greens went to the chickens.
Beet Greens
The roots were left on the table for the dirt to dry a bit before I scrub them. I was hoping for a hard rain to wash all the dirt off but that didn’t happen so I had to scrub the beets, which I did outside to keep from flushing too much dirt down the drain since we’re on a septic tank.
Beets
That was enough for 4 quarts of pickled beets.
Pickled Beets
Aren’t they so pretty? And to think . . all that beautiful red from those little beet seeds.
Karin says
Oh the greens are so good sautéed with butter though! Loooove beets, yum!
JudyL says
We eat a lot of beet greens too but by this time in the growing season, the leaves have gotten tough and a bit stringy so they go to the chickens.
Robin Crittenden says
What did you do to them? I love pickled beets and just might try it
Helen Koenig1 says
Beet greens – I agree – I love them – cook in just a bit of butter! YUM!!!! And even better when served with pickled beets! Oh my! Only thing better is to lie me out under the grape vine during harvest time!
Peg H says
Yummmo! Love pickled beets although I’ve never pickled them myself … something else to try. And yes, they’re SO pretty!
Dar in MO says
Pickeled beets are one of my favorite veggies too. In fact, I don’t really care for them any other way. I use the beet greens from the top in my vegetable lasgne along with spinach greens and they make it a little bit sweeter. Also put in a little zucchini or other squash that is on hand with the tomatoes. Everyone loves it when I make it once a year for our sewing retreat day.
Howdy says
I love making pickled beets too… and last year we began roasting them along with other roasted vegetables… then roasting them by themselves since they make everyone else in the pan pink… LOL
JudyL says
I have a recipe for a salad with roasted beets and I always roast way more than needed for the salad because I can’t stop eating them!
Joyce says
I love beets, and I just bought some at the Farmers’ Market yesterday. I think I planted mine too late…I’ll have to try for some fall ones. I’m one of those strange people that don’t care for them pickled, though. I take mine roasted or boiled. I was just thinking the juice might make good dye for yarn…hmmm.
Denise in PA says
Mmmmm, I love beets too! Pickled, roasted – however! A friend of the family used to bring us her home-pickled beets occasionally and I loved them! I miss them and her now that she’s gone!
Rebecca in SoCal says
It’s funny that Joyce mentioned dyeing; just yesterday in our paper was an article on natural dyes.
I was looking for the raw beet sandwich that Alanna Kellogg at A Veggie Venture enjoys, when I saw a whole bunch of good-looking beet sandwich (roasted and raw) recipes on Google. Yummy! I wish my husband enjoyed beets.