Beets have never been my favorite vegetable. I do remember my mother making Harvard Beets with tiny new beets when we were young. I did like those, but that was where I drew the line for many years. Recently I learned that beets have some very good-for-you nutrients in them, though I cannot tell you right now what those nutrients are.
Since then I have been trying to eat beets from time to time. The best beets I have eaten were pickled beets in the salad bar at Godfather's Pizza on Cornelius Pass. Because these were surprisingly good, when I found that you can make pickled beets at home, and in the refrigerator, I thought I would give them a try.
This is what I did:
Quick and Easy Pickled Beets in the Refrigerator
2 15-ounce cans sliced beets
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1 teaspoon stone ground mustard with whole mustard seeds visible
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
2 small peeled garlic cloves
Drain the beets.
Place the garlic cloves and mustard in a 1-quart wide mouth Mason jar.
In a 4 cup measuring cup, mix together the vinegar, water, and salt and stir well.
Place the drained beet slices in the quart jar. Pour the vinegar mixture over the slices, leaving about 1/2 inch space at the top.
Cover with the lid and gently shake the jar until you think that the liquid has gotten to all the beets. Place in the refrigerator for at least 24 hour or better yet, 48 hours.
For myself, I let them pickle for four days before trying them. Not bad, but it is a pretty good bet that I failed to put in the Kosher salt. Oh, well, I can salt them as I eat them if I feel strongly enough about the saltiness issue. Right now I would find them fine to eat with my breakfast baked potato, which is what I plan for tomorrow morning's breakfast....I want to use up the last little potatoes, and maybe a spring roll with peanut sauce (which was fabulous, if I do say so myself) which I made for the office potluck lunch earlier this week.
There you have it: Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickled Beets.
Showing posts with label beets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beets. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2018
Friday, May 4, 2018
Food Friday: What I Learned!
After the Vegetable Smoothie debacle yesterday I decided to leave out future beet parts from them. The bunch had four beets, plus the greens attached. Since I could not bear to toss them out I decided to cook them up somehow. I remember my father eating beet greens with vinegar on them, then uplifting the bowl and draining the vinegar into his mouth. I am not sure I will go that route, but I did steam the beet greens. They are now waiting in the refrigerator for me to eat them tonight. I am not even going to TRY to offer them to Dear One. Why plague the poor guy?!
Now there were the four beets, well, three and three-quarters beets...remember the quarter beet in the benighted vegetable smoothie...What to do with them. Hmmm.
What I did with them was scrubbed the rest of them then cut them into quarters, pole to pole; put them in a large bowl with about 2 teaspoons olive oil; mixed them until there was oil on all surfaces; then sprinkled in some coarse Kosher salt and stirred again. I roasted them for 45 minutes at 400 degrees F. They were not quite done when we had to leave for the office so I just shut them off and left them in the oven, hoping the residual heat would finish cooking them.
Fast forward ten hours. We arrived home from the office but I had gotten a bug to go to a hardware store to get some plexi-glass sheeting cut for watercolor paper support. When I found an Ace Hardware store I noticed it was right next door to a Tienda Mexicana. This was a sign! I HAD to go.
So I left Dear One at home to shift for himself and headed out. I had a couple other stops in my mind, not that I shared that news widely, so I hoped he would eat up the leftover lasagna in the refrigerator.
The hardware store trip was way more successful than I had imagined and the Tienda Mexicana adventure came out really well. I walked out of the store with a few items (this had been an assignment for last week from my Spanish tutor which I had not completed for some reason, mostly gutlessness, but now it is done. I might go back and try again, and talk and listen a little more...).
When I got home Dear One met me in the kitchen doorway and apologized for turning on the oven without looking. May I say, the beets were ready to eat?! Actually, they were fabulous. Roasting beets is the best way to ingest that important food. This is a good thing to learn.
Now there were the four beets, well, three and three-quarters beets...remember the quarter beet in the benighted vegetable smoothie...What to do with them. Hmmm.
What I did with them was scrubbed the rest of them then cut them into quarters, pole to pole; put them in a large bowl with about 2 teaspoons olive oil; mixed them until there was oil on all surfaces; then sprinkled in some coarse Kosher salt and stirred again. I roasted them for 45 minutes at 400 degrees F. They were not quite done when we had to leave for the office so I just shut them off and left them in the oven, hoping the residual heat would finish cooking them.
Fast forward ten hours. We arrived home from the office but I had gotten a bug to go to a hardware store to get some plexi-glass sheeting cut for watercolor paper support. When I found an Ace Hardware store I noticed it was right next door to a Tienda Mexicana. This was a sign! I HAD to go.
So I left Dear One at home to shift for himself and headed out. I had a couple other stops in my mind, not that I shared that news widely, so I hoped he would eat up the leftover lasagna in the refrigerator.
The hardware store trip was way more successful than I had imagined and the Tienda Mexicana adventure came out really well. I walked out of the store with a few items (this had been an assignment for last week from my Spanish tutor which I had not completed for some reason, mostly gutlessness, but now it is done. I might go back and try again, and talk and listen a little more...).
When I got home Dear One met me in the kitchen doorway and apologized for turning on the oven without looking. May I say, the beets were ready to eat?! Actually, they were fabulous. Roasting beets is the best way to ingest that important food. This is a good thing to learn.
Another thing I learned this week is that it is possible to "over-process" flax seeds when you are turning them into flax seed meal. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I opened the container and found that rather than flax seed meal, it was almost flax seed butter. May I say that this has not stopped me from using it in smoothies and in the best oatmeal bowl ever. It just is not as pleasant...
Well, back to work!
Friday, March 24, 2017
Food Friday: Roasted Vegetables Again
Roasting vegetables is a such a delicious way to get vegetables into bodies. Well, I love most vegetables so they are not a problem for me. At the weight and wellness class the other day Jane told me she had roasted beets, cabbage, and onions. I tried it. It was scrumptious!
This does look rather unappetizing but it was amazingly good.
Chop half a green cabbage into large-sized dice. Chop one large onion into the size pieces you like, about the same size as the cabbage. Scrub and dry 4 small beets. Cut off the tap root then chop everything you have left (no skinning, not taking off the cap of the beet) into medium-sized dice. Place all into a large bowl. Pour on 2-3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and stir to coat. In a small bowl, mix together 1 teaspoon granulated garlic and 1 teaspoon granulated onions, 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt, and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper. Sprinkle the spice mixture on the vegetables and stir again.
Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Stir and roast another 30 minutes. This is how I did it. It worked in our oven. You might want to check more often to see if they are done to your liking. I wanted the beets to be VERY WELL done. Not a big fan of them, but they are good for us so...
This does look rather unappetizing but it was amazingly good.
Chop half a green cabbage into large-sized dice. Chop one large onion into the size pieces you like, about the same size as the cabbage. Scrub and dry 4 small beets. Cut off the tap root then chop everything you have left (no skinning, not taking off the cap of the beet) into medium-sized dice. Place all into a large bowl. Pour on 2-3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and stir to coat. In a small bowl, mix together 1 teaspoon granulated garlic and 1 teaspoon granulated onions, 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt, and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper. Sprinkle the spice mixture on the vegetables and stir again.
Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Stir and roast another 30 minutes. This is how I did it. It worked in our oven. You might want to check more often to see if they are done to your liking. I wanted the beets to be VERY WELL done. Not a big fan of them, but they are good for us so...
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Garden Harvest: Roasted Beets
Beets are not my favorite vegetables. They are edible however, and are supposed to be very good for you. SO...when I was given a bunch of beets, I decided to roast some of them. In the back of my mind I remember making some wonderful roasted beets many years ago when dear friends asked us to use their CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) shares when they were going to be gone for half the summer. That particular CSA hostess often included recipes, especially for vegetables that were lesser well-known. She gave us a recipe for roasted beets, roasted in the (well-scrubbed) skins. They were so very good. Just not good enough for me to plant beets in our garden yet. If I find the recipe and it still is as good as I remember, perhaps beets will be in the garden next year.
This is what I did with the beets:
Scrubbed 5 large beets. Cut off the tops and the root ends. Cut the beets in half then sliced into 1/2 inch slices then sliced the other direction as well.
Put the beet chunks in a 3-quart bowl.
Added to the bowl:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Mixed all this together well (I used my hands, but you could use a rubber spatula or long-handled wooden spoon. I enjoyed licking the salt-pepper-and-thyme-y goodness off my fingers.)
Preheated the oven to 400 degrees F.
Put the prepared beets on a large rimmed baking pan, in this case a half-sheet pan. Spread the beets around so they were in one layer. Cooked for 30 minutes. Removed from oven and stirred well then returned to oven for another 30 minutes of cooking. Removed from oven again and let sit a few minutes to cool.
They were more than edible! Not fantastic as in feeling like I had died-and-gone-to-Heaven good, but very much eat-able. Based on how these taste, I may try to turn some of them into borscht soup. My last effort in the borscht department was such a disaster taste-wise that I thought I would never make it again. Just today I saw a recipe that looks really good. It uses sauercraut! What can go wrong with sauercraut?!
This is what I did with the beets:
Scrubbed 5 large beets. Cut off the tops and the root ends. Cut the beets in half then sliced into 1/2 inch slices then sliced the other direction as well.
Put the beet chunks in a 3-quart bowl.
 |
| Beets in 3-quart bowl |
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Mixed all this together well (I used my hands, but you could use a rubber spatula or long-handled wooden spoon. I enjoyed licking the salt-pepper-and-thyme-y goodness off my fingers.)
Preheated the oven to 400 degrees F.
 |
| Beets on pan and ready to roast |
Put the prepared beets on a large rimmed baking pan, in this case a half-sheet pan. Spread the beets around so they were in one layer. Cooked for 30 minutes. Removed from oven and stirred well then returned to oven for another 30 minutes of cooking. Removed from oven again and let sit a few minutes to cool.
 |
| Roasted beets cooling |
They were more than edible! Not fantastic as in feeling like I had died-and-gone-to-Heaven good, but very much eat-able. Based on how these taste, I may try to turn some of them into borscht soup. My last effort in the borscht department was such a disaster taste-wise that I thought I would never make it again. Just today I saw a recipe that looks really good. It uses sauercraut! What can go wrong with sauercraut?!
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