When it is beet season many local farmers will have bulk flash sales. I usually will pick up beets carrots and cabbage around the same time and do a big run of pickling, canning and fermenting.

Pickled beets remind me of my mothers plate at dinner time. There is reason I still have this underlying annoyance of needing to set a table. Its because on a southern table you need condiments. No food is ever eaten without something that came out of a jar. Eventually I learned what was required to go on the table depending on the meal, but there was a period of time I would just bring random things to the table and to my surprise they would often go on my mothers plate. As kids we would slap some food on our plate and eat it. I didn’t learn to appreciate how my mother would get the perfect amount of something and then accompany it with a relish or sauce and couple pieces of pickled veg of some sort. But looking in my fridge I know I have picked up her habit.

This recipe has been adapted over time and is very forgiving. I prefer the clove to not be forward but you can easily add more. These are a perfect blend of spice, savory, sweet and sour. Bonus, the onions can be used as a base for a salad dressing or perk up a sandwich.

Ingredients:

4 medium roasted beets
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/3 cup granulated raw sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon mustard seed
10 whole black peppercorns
2 clove
1T thyme
1 bay leaf
1 red onion thinly sliced
3 garlic
zest of orange

Instructions:

1. Roast beets skin on in foil.
2. Let cool and peel.
3. Place beets into a mason jar.
4. Place all the rest of the ingredients into a pot and bring to a rolling boil for about 3 minutes.
5. *Pour over beets close the jar and let cool.
6. Refrigerate once cooled.

*Note: This is where you would switch to canning instructions if you wanted these to be shelf stable. Instead of cooling you would put these into a pressure cooking or boiling water. I never need to can these because they don’t last long. But if I were to double triple this recipe I certainly would.