Pickled Beets!

My grandma used to make the best pickled beets. I haven't had them in years though since she hasn't been able to plant a garden. Recently I've gotten into canning so I wanted to try to copy her recipe. Only thing was I didn't have her recipe. I tried to find one online, but none of them sound just like hers. I asked my mom and my Aunt Linda to try to find it, but they were having a hard time. A couple weeks ago I got a text from my aunt saying she was mailing me the recipe. A few days later I got two old canning cookbooks. They look like comic books in size. I flipped right to the pickled beets and the recipe sounded just like what I remember them tasting like. 

I asked my friend Kim if she would be willing to let us come over and use her kitchen to can some beets. Of course she said yes! :) 

Harvest morning! 

This was my first time growing beets. The one in the front was really big, but then we started picking the rest and they were quite a bit smaller. I'm kind of confused since they were in the same soil and got the same water and sun. 

It was fun getting to harvest them with all the kids. 

Bountiful Basket Of Beets! 

After washing, cutting and boiling the beets it was time to peel them. Thankfully Kim's mom is a nurse so she had some rubber gloves! My hands would have looked ridiculous! 

I was wondering why the recipe said to leave 3 inches of the stem on when cutting them, but then when I was peeling them it made sense....gives you something to hold onto! 

After peeling it was time to cut them into smaller pieces and then boil them in the brine. Since I had some little beets I was sure I was only going to get about 3 jars, but I ended up with double that! They are little jars! 

Once they were done boiling I put them in the jars and poured the brine over them. Then all you do is seal them up. If you're familiar with canning normally you have to process the jars in a water bath so they will vacuum seal...this recipe didn't call for that. I wasn't sure if they were going to seat, but after about an hour they all sealed!

Probably one of the most surprising things from that morning is the fact that the kids played so well we never even got interrupted by them once! I had to go check on Zeke just to see where he was, but that's it! They were so good!