Hi All,
The pics are from growing to finished products. We were in the garden at 8pm Friday night harvesting, I was up till midnight washing and boiling to prep for peeling and canning on Saturday. The whole project from harvest to putting on shelf took 10 hours. I had forgotten how long it took to do beets, because of the peeling step. But they are sure worth it. We have two rows we didn't even pick yet and I want to plant more for a Fall harvest.

Next will be squash pickles and something with carrots?

Thanks for letting me share.
Susan in NC

Great job Susan...Curious about the pickling mix...Is that something you bought or something you made up....I hope I have enough beets for pickles...I love pickled beets...My Mother never cooked an evening meal that she didn't put the beets on the table.

Ball has introduced new pickle mixes this year. One is for pickling beets. Its similar to taste of sweet mixed pickles. I pickle small whole or larger sliced beets and make theim with a sweet pickle mix. I use Splenda instead of sugar, and part cider vinegar and part white vinegar, celery seed, mustard seed, dill seed, cinnamon, coriander, allspice, and cloves. I've also made a sweet garden mix with cauliflower, carrots, onions, cukes, and peppers.

Hi Ruthie,
I use cinnamon, cloves and allspice in mine. Don doesn't like the pickling spices in the beets. I don't use "mixes" just cause I like to be able to adjust the spices to my liking and don't always use the same formula.

Its a very easy recipe, let me know if you want it.

Susan

The major reason I use the mixes is to reduce the amount of whole spices used, as the mixes seem to give you more of the flavor in oils, and will not cause darkening of the brines. If I make a sweet mixed. I like to see the bright colors of teh vegetables. Because cinnamon, allspice, cloves and a few others tend to make these brines brown color, they don't make the same appearance. Obviously this isn't important when pickling beets however, unless they were a yellow variety. When I make half sour dills, I use a mix as well as adding extra fresh spices like dill seed heads. Without the mix, the dill seed would have to be at least tripled in every jar to get a similar dill flavor. The mixes I use are just for the 'base' of the recipe, and I add what I prefer to strengthen a flavor. A good example is a Bread & Butter pickle slice. I use a crinkle cutter for them, as well as a mix, but add more celery and mustard seeds to each jar. Sometimes I also like to add a little brown mustard seed as they have a more 'mustardy' taste with a bit of hot. What I mean about a 'base, is if I plan to make 20 quarts of pickles, I would use only a single mix package that would be used for maybe 5-6 quarts, and then add more spices to bring up the flavor in a different direction if I so choose.

Out of curiosity, I just tried searching for the new mixes offered by Ball for making pickled beets. Not sure where I saw it originally, but now, I can't locate the source for this mix. It could be that they dropped it off the product list, but I am sure I saw it only a few months ago.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pickled beets

I just got an email from Kitchen Krafts. As it turned out, Ball dosn't offer the pickled beet mix, it was Mrs. Wages. They also make one for pickling mixed garden vegetables. The mixes can be used for making both a home canned pickle, or a refrigerator pickle that needs no processing.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pickled beet mix

I got the Mrs. Wages pickled beets & dilled bean mixes at WalMart and they were both on sale for $1 each. Each will provide enough for 6 pints. I put up one batch of dilled beans about 3 weeks ago and haven't tried them yet. My sister did the same and she and the 3 1/2 year old grandson love them. Haven't had a chance to do the pickled beets yet. I have 10 extra packages of the dilled beans mix that I bought and several of the beets mix. Don't know how many I'll use. They also had a garden mix package available that I didn't buy, but I might go back to see if they have any of them left and give a go at them.

Lucky you.. Here, our Walmarts are small and lack most of the nice things you see in a super store. Heck, these don't even have a single isle of foods. I would have to travel to Salem NH to get to a store that has everything, but because its a mad house there, I can't bear the mobs ver long. Because I like my pickles to have a lot of flavor, I don't skimp when using a mix, unless they contain a lot of extra salt too. Because they have to list most of the ingredients, like celery , dill, or mustard seed, I usually add a bit more of these.

My mom always made her pickled beets with just cider vinegar and white sugar. We used to eat them as an after school snack. No one eats beets in my family except me. I'm very excited about trying a new pickled beet recipe and will definitely check out Walmart for the Mrs. Wages mix.

ksrogers,
I agree with you about the Salem NH Walmart. If you're looking for a nice huge Walmart, try the one in Epping NH. It's at the intersection of Rte 125 & 101/51. It's about 15 mins off Rte 95 (easiest) or about 15-20 mins off 495. Just don't try to go on a summer weekend the traffic can be tough.

I would like to make pickled beets that taste liked the jarred ones I find in the canned vegetable aisle. Most recipes I've seen have cinnamon and clove and I don't think that's what I want (maybe I'm wrong LOL). Do you think the mix would give me what I'm looking for?

All the ones I tried from the stores taste like mine? Make a small dinner size batch first and see if you like it, if you do write down what you did and just multiply it for a bigger canned batch. That is how I experiment.

Susan

6 pints of Annie's Salsa
4 half pints of Sweet Cherry & Pineapple Jam

Haven't been doing a lot of canning because I was waiting for the coil cartridge to come in for my stove so I could use the canning coil my friend gave me. The other side of the stove is radiant and I was constantly worried about cracking it. The cartridge came in today and soon I will get a lot more canning done. Got the cartridge used on eBay at a much lower price than they normally go for and it is in like new condition. I guess no one wanted one in the white. Lucky.

Haven't tried the pickled beet mix yet, but expect it to have a very good taste, similar to store bought. I made some last year and used sweet pickle mixes for the brine. Beets smaller than 2 inches were canned whole, with small boiling onions. Beets over 2 inches were sliced and the jars also got some big onion slices. I parboiled the beets a little to help in removal of the skins. When cooking beets, you would leave about half to one inch of the greens, and the root tip. Removing these prior to cooking tend to allow the beet to leech out its color a bit more. Can't enjoy beets any more now.. bummer..