The incredible, edible......... BEET.

Detroit Red Beets

June and July is beet season in our part of the country.  I think that appreciating the wonder of a beat is an acquired thing.  As I grew up, I didn't know many kids, myself included, who were very crazy about them.  Maybe kids now days like them.  I hope so.  At any rate, as a grown-up, I just love beets!  Baby beets in butter, harvard beets, beet juice, pickled beets and beet greens in salads. Have you ever grated a beet over a lettuce salad?  If you use a hand grater and would rather not have pink fingers, hold the beet with a sheet of plastic wrap as you grate.  A boiled egg pickled in pickled beet juice is a real treat.  If you haven't tried a beet in a while, you should.  They are full of healthful benefits for us.  They are loaded with vitamin C and low in calories. Beet tops are high in vitamin A.   If you have never grown a beet you may not know how pretty the plants are.


Myself, I like to cut the top off the beet bulb off. (stash the tops in a plastic bag in the fridge for salad later) I peel and cube the beets into a small saucepan.  If you are peeling lots and lots of beets, then you save time if you blanch them, slip the skins off then cute them up.  I add a couple of tablespoons of water to the saucepan and simmer until the beet cubes are fork tender.  I stir another tablespoon of butter into them and sprinkle with salt & pepper and a little lemon juice.  Oh my........ how delicious! 

freshly pulled beets

A very popular version of beets is to pickle them.  The following is my Grandmother's tried and true recipe for Pickled Beets.  

Lula's Pickled Beets

3 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups water

2 cups white vinegar

1 tsp pickling spice

Cook and peel beets.  Bring liquid to a boil.  Boil 20 minutes.  Put beets in jars and pour hot liquid over and seal.  Makes 11 pints.  This is a very old recipe so I would advise putting the filled jars through a hot water bath canning process.  It also doesn't tell us how many beets this will take so you would have to visualize 11 pints and start there.  I am sure that they harvested the beets they had available, then kept canning and making syrup until they were all put up for the winter.