Cooking From the Garden: Pickled Striped Beets

Striped beets aren't usually as sweet as regular beets, so they tend to get overlooked when we harvest things from our garden.  Jake continues to grow them because he thinks they are pretty, but the result tends to be what I refer to as "monster beets."  Sometimes, we will have left them in the ground so long a couple of them grow together into one beet. 

At that point, they are a little bit tough, and the flavor leaves something to be desired.  But it is easy to punch up that flavor by roasting the beets, then pickling them.  The stripes present in the raw beets fade over time, leaving a pale pink pickle this goes beautiful in a salad or as an accent to a meal.

 

We made these earlier in the summer.  I've been holding onto these pics until I opened a jar so I could show you the finished product at the same time.  You can use the following recipe with red beets, but the color will be much darker.

 

8 - 10 c. striped beets, cleaned and peeled

3 tbsp. fresh rosemary needles
2 tsp. olive oil

1 large red onion, frenched

1 c. white wine vinegar
2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 c. sugar
1 c. water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Prepare a canning bath. 

Cut the beets into small chunks and place them on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle the rosemary over the beets and sprinkle with the olive oil.  Roast in the oven for 35 minutes, or until the beets are completely completely cooked through.

 

Remove any tough spots from the cooked beets.  Layer together with the onion in 1-quart jars.  In a small non-reactive pot, combine the vinegar, sea salt, sugar and water.  Bring the liquid just to a boil, then pour it over the beets in the jars.

In a small pot boil the rest of the ingredients and pour over the beets, leaving proper head space. Process for 30-35 minutes.

 

It Takes the Cake: Strawberry Filled Chocolate Cake

I'm down to my last jar of strawberry lavender preserves.  This means two things:

1 -- I made just enough preserves last spring to last for the year, as strawberry season is right around the corner, and

2-- I need to come up with something special to do with this last bit of sweet perfection.

So I whipped up a rich chocolate cake, substituting lavender sugar for the granulated sugar, along with a batch of chocolate buttercream.  When I assembled the cake, I spread a layer of the strawberry lavender preserves in the middle.

I piped a simple strawberry design on the top, and did a bright green beaded boarder at the edge of the cake board.

If you'd like to make your own strawberry lavender preserves, here's my recipe:

Strawberry Lavender Preserves:

8 c. strawberries

4 c. lavender-scented sugar (or granulated sugar)

2 tbsp. lavender flowers

Juice of 1 lemon

Wash and hull strawberries and slice using an egg slicer. Combine the strawberries and the lavender sugar in a large pot and heat slowly until the juices become clear (4-6 minutes). Remove from the heat and stir in lemon juice.  Bundle the lavender flowers into a square of cheesecloth and tie securely.  Add the bundle to the strawberry mixture.  Cover the pot loosely with plastic wrap let stand overnight.  When you are ready to proceed, heat 2 or 3 ladles full of the strawberry mixture in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook and stir for 3 -5 minutes, or until the preserves pass one of the tests for reaching the gel state.

Ladle the jam into the sterilized jars, filling to within 1/4 inch of the rim. Repeat with the remaining strawberry mixture.  Process in boiling water canner for 5 minutes.

If you want wore information on canning and are local to the Dallas Fort Worth Area, there is still pelnty of time to sign up for my Fundamentals of Canning class that I will be teaching out at The Universtiy of Texas at Arlington in early June.