Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook!
This week, I’m celebrating all things beets, which in my opinion are a very under-appreciated vegetable. Not only are they good for you, but they also taste great and are very photogenic little rascals!
They are one of Mother Nature’s best idea–combining a sweet, earthy and delightful root to enjoy at the bottom of greens that are so good for you that you could probably live on them–you might not be the nicest person in the world, but I think you could actually survive on them.
Today, I’m featuring recipe for pickled beets. But first, an interesting tidbit I learned about beets at my local market.
I buy my asparagus at my local market from a farmer named Matt. He is also my beet guy. And his beets, not unlike his asparagus, are the best at the market–sweet, earthy, plump and juicy. He has what he calls “sweet soil” and extolls the virtue of his “terroir.” Grape farmers in the wine business are all about their “terroir,” too, claiming that soil in different regions and with different properties are responsible for the various qualities, such as minimality, acidity and tannins. Crops of any kind will pick up the flavors of the soil in which they grow, including sweetness, making Matt’s asparagus and beets sweeter than those from other regions.
I asked him about some of the beet varietals that I mentioned in my last post, such as white and candy-cane beets. He said his decision to grow only red beets was strictly an economic one: golden beet seed is four times as expensive as red beet seed, and he hadn’t even investigated white beets. Ha! So, there you go! I guess it’s a good thing I prefer red beets over other varieties!
One of my favorite ways to enjoy beets is pickled. But then again, I like pickled vegetables…a lot. During the pandemic, while others were experimenting with sourdough and puppy-training, I experimented with pickling all manner of vegetables: beets, carrots, kumquats, asparagus, okra, radishes to name a few…I still don’t like radishes, but that’s another story. Some of the pickles came out better than others–some I gave up on and I’m still experimenting with others.
Hands down, the most successful pickles I developed were beet pickles. The carrots were delicious, also, but used a TON–and I mean a TON of sugar. They were out of this world good, but I decided I was only allowed to consume one batch in a lifetime…so…I’m going back to the drawing board on that one 😉 For the beets, I experimented with several different variations until I settled on the one published below, in which I use brown sugar instead of white, along with a nice variety of warm and comforting spices that pair nicely with either rice wine vinegar or cider vinegar (depending on what you have on hand).
Tune in later this week for more beet recipes–until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
