quick pickled beets

Robb has been including a fair amount of beets in the CSA boxes, so I have been saving them up to make one big dish instead of using them up individually. After a lifetime of turning up her nose at beets (it isn’t hard to do when your parents only serve gross canned grocery store beets), Kristin ate some pickled beets while she was on the road. She really liked them, so I decided to do a quick pickled version. She liked these as well…

Baby beets work great for this recipe.

1 – Remove the tops from the beets. You can use the beet tops in juices, soups or stocks if you want. I haven’t gotten that far with them yet.

2 – Wash the beets and boil for 20 to 30 minutes or until they are tender.

3 – Rinse with cold water and hand peel the skins. The skins will come right off just using your fingers.

4 – Mix up a marinade consisting of a pinch of finely crushed garlic, a pinch of dried oregano, a pinch of dried basil, one tablespoon of oil, one tablespoon of honey, 1/2 teaspoon of dried mustard (if you have it) and 1/4 cup of fruit scrap vinegar of whatever vinegar you happen to have.

5 – Slice the beets and add them to the marinade.

6 – Let the beets marinate for an hour, stirring occasionally.

7 – Enjoy the beets as a side or add to a salad of local lettuces, goat feta and radishes…