Pickled Beets

This year my garden blessed me with a hefty crop of beets. Unfortunately, my family is not too crazy about beets. I tried adding them to a grilled mixture of vegetables (potatoes, rutabaga, carrots and onions). Not a winner. I cooked a small amount and served it as a side dish. Another loser. I briefly toyed with cooking up a big pot of borscht but knew my family wouldn't go for that either.

What is it about beets that is so troublesome for the kids? I wonder if the bright red-purple color leads them to think that it will have a sweet candy flavor. Possibly the disappointment is too great.

My solution? Pickled beets! My grandmother, Olina Tamina Thompson Olson, used to can quart after quart of these sweet, red pickles and I loved them. (My sister reminds me that she definitely didn't.) That sweet/sour/spicy flavor always makes me think of Grandma's house. Going down into her cellar-like basement to retrieve a quart for our "light supper" was always a bit of an adventure.

I haven't made pickles since helping my mother almost 30 years ago. What did I have to lose? It's not like my family was carefully guarding my harvest of beets, making sure I didn't make any mistakes. (they probably were hoping that this would turn out badly and end up in the compost heap and not on the dinner table.)

Here's the recipe that I found on-line. I added shelled, hard-boiled eggs as per the recipe. I thought they looked kind of cool arranged on the plate. My husband's comment: "Now this is weird."