Beet Pickles or Pickled Beets?

Beets are on of the few things pickled you are not sure what you are going to get.  It seems that bread and butter pickles, dill pickles and sweet pickles are all pretty universal in their flavor.   There may be subtle nuances that each family adds to the recipe, but you can depend on that basic flavor.   Beets on the other hand are pickled differently by every family and every company.   You never know what pickled beets on a salad bar might taste like.

Pickles made from cucumbers are always call variety pickles, pick your variety.  No one calls them pickles dill, no they are dill pickles.  Sweet pickles, 14 day pickles, lime pickles, kool-aid pickles.   I can’t think of a single cucumber based pickle that does not announce the variety before calling it a pickle.

Beets on the other hand can be called beet pickles or pickled beets.   I wonder why that is?   Does that freedom to refer to beets any way you want, also give folks who can the right to take huge creative liberties when canning beets?

I had not thought much about this until the Saturday when a friend gave me beet pickles.  I looked at the bright purple beets swimming in their bath of sugar, vinegar and spices.    We opened them tonight and had them with dinner, and found it full of whole cloves, beets, cinnamon and onions.   It had a wonderfully complex flavor but a 180 degree change from my mom’s.   Mom’s recipe is very simple sugar and vinegar, sort of sweet sour sort of thing no spices.  It has a strong beet flavor.    Though vastly different I sure enjoyed them.

A New Challenge Collard Greens

Regular basket for this week.

This week my Bountiful Basket included lots of fun goodies and only one of them may me think hmmmmm.   Collard greens.   I have never made or even tasted them in my entire life to my knowledge.   So I will be searching for a recipe on the net.    My husband said he is sure that Paula Deen has something that will use them with lots of bacon and butter.  Those two fats can make anything yum!

This week I ended up with a “conventional basket” (non organic).   I really feel like I got quite a stash for only $15.  Look at the picture to see how much produce we ended up with.

I am discovering it really is quite a challenge to get all my fruit ate.   Last week my DH had to bring a treat to work and he made a banana cake with a white cake mix.   We still ended up freezing a few mashed banana’s and now we start again.   We did freeze some cauliflower as well.

Tonight we ate a leftovers with homemade Margaritas on the rocks.  So we started already on the limes.   I grilled some mixed veggies as well. So started on basket even on the first day.   Tomorrow  will start menu planning to work on getting meals that utilize as much of our stash as possible.   I am not a honeydew melon eater so will likely share that with others.  Two English cukes is a lot and so will send one of those on as well.    Beyond that even if I am gone for three days lets hope that we can get through this all before we need to decide if we are in or out for the next box.

Let the next two weeks  journey into healthful eating start.