I've spent much of today canning...beets and carrots, as promised...but let's begin at the beginning...
I shared the
harvest basket yesterday, these are the washeded carrots...
...and beets.
While the beets cooked to fork tender so I could skin them...
...I cleaned up the carrots...some were pretty funny looking!
I got them cut up and put them in a bowl of water while I worked on the beets.
I used a basic canning process for the carrots, and decided to follow the
Ball canning book recipe for the pickled beets
(click on the link for the recipe), but changed the 1 Tbsp of whole allspice to 1 1/2 tsp of allspice and 1 1/2 tsp of clove
(I saw clove in another recipe so decided to modify a bit...you know me, the kitchen experimenter!).
The beets looks absolutely beautiful coming out of the boiling water...
...and even more incredible after I skinned them
(I've never done this before, anything with beets, but found myself totally engaged and excited by every step!)...
...I decided to include some onions with the pickling recipe
(that was a long thought out decision, but in the end, picking won)...
...these things are a gorgeous red that turn your fingers and anything else they touch a pink color, but as I said, I enjoyed this first time process for me, and was tickled by everything turned pink!
In the end, I had 1 jar of sealed carrots, 1 jar that was not (
I discovered a slight dent in the sealing ring, so those will have to be refrigerated and used in the near future), I had an extra jar of beet juice that I mixed with the pickling juice and will use somehow, and 3 jars of pickled beets with onions...I think they are going to be awesome!...
If I do say so myself!
This living off the land thing is really starting to take it's hold on me! Even though I don't have a big enough garden to provide everything we need, I do believe buying from fresh produce markets and canning is the thing for me!
Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise
2 comments:
Aunt Luci told me that you need 8-12 inches of very loomy/composted soil to grow large/long carrots as they don't like to "work hard" to grow through hard soils. Can't wait to taste these treats...by the way, I love pickled beets! Hugs!
These carrots are actually a short stubby variation specific for areas like ours...but I do think we might need a little more loomy soil for them! Thanks to you and Aunt Luci for the info though. Hugs back!
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