Tag Archives: beets

A little colour for winter

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I’ve had a stock pile of beets left in the fridge, from my garden, for quite some time, along with some cabbage that needed using. I realized it’s been some time since I made borscht, so, voila!

Borscht

The great thing about borscht is that you can vary the vegetable ingredients to use up whatever you have in the fridge. Got some turnip? Throw it in. Got some parsnips? Leeks? Throw them in too! The mainstays are simply the beets and cabbage. You can even add some beef or beans if you want the extra protein. This is one of those soups that’s even better the next day, so you can even make it ahead if needed. Finally, borscht also freezes nicely so pack up the leftovers for some future work or lazy Saturday lunches.

Borscht
Yield 8 to 10 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 6 beets, peeled and shredded
  • 2 leeks (white and light green part only), chopped
  • 2 carrots, shredded
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 turnip, peeled and shredded; or 1/4 to half a small rutabaga
  • 1 stalk celery, chopped
  • 2 potatoes, diced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 7 cups beef or vegetable broth
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 cups shredded cabbage (white or red is fine)
  • 3 tbsp cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp granulated sugar
  • salt and pepper
  • sour cream and snipped chives or green onion tops for garnish

Directions:

  1. In large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add beets, leeks, carrots, garlic, onion, turnip, celery, potato and bay leaves; cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes.
  2. Stir in broth and tomato paste. Bring to simmer and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Stir in cabbage; cook for another 5 to 10 minutes, until cabbage is softened.
  3. Season with vinegar, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste, adding more vinegar and sugar if needed. There should be a nice sweet and sour balance. Discard bay leaves.
  4. Place dollop of sour cream and sprinkle of chives on each serving.

 

Just in time for spring: mittens!

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Garden Nerd mittens

Garden Nerd mittens

These babies are looooong overdue. I think I started them around this time last year. The hibernated for a while. And then when I picked up the torch this spring to finally get them done, I finished the left mitt, which fit perfectly, and then realized the right mitt was way, way too small. I tried blocking them to see if they’d stretch but no luck. So after much debate I decided to start the right mitt over, and cut off the cuff of the original so that at least I could skip doing that part over again, as I knew trying to unravel the mitt from the top, after all its ends were woven in, would only end badly — in say, a trip to the psych ward.

Garden Nerd mittens

Garden Nerd mittens

It’s quite hard to get the right tension when doing colour work, but I think I’ve been doing enough lately, what with the socks, that I’m finally getting the hang of maintaining very light tension, which seems to be the key to success. Unfortunately I’ve been experiencing some carpal tunnel lately, especially this past weekend, so the knitting is on hold for a while. Unfortunately I don’t think my sewing is really doing me any favours in this regard, either. So much for my great idea that sewing would take the pressure off any repetitive strain from my knitting. I’m trying to stay off the keyboard as much as possible too, although that’s pretty hard when you work an office job.

Anyhoo, there are some small mistakes in these mitts, and I really wish they had a thumb gusset. If I were to make them again ever, I’d figure out a mod to include one. I just don’t like how restrictive they feel in the thumb area. But they are so cute, I have to overlook it. These are designed by SpillyJane Knits, based in Windsor, Ontario. She has the most amazing colourwork designs, although if I’ve learned anything, I need to size up her patterns a bit as they seem to be on the small side. The greens and brown are Malabrigo sock yarn in Lettuce and Turner, and Cordovan, and the pink and orange are Debbie Bliss Rialto 4ply.

It looks like spring is really on the way, with a high of 8 degrees C expected tomorrow, so I likely won’t need them for long but they’re just the thing to get me in the spirit of gardening season.

Garden nearly wrapped up

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Yesterday’s freakishly warm temperatures aside, September has been a fairly quiet month for the garden because of the very cool temperatures. The tomatoes are nearly done, and the chilies and peppers are taking their sweet time ripening in the cold.

There are still some leeks on the go; I’ll leave them be until we get some frost.

Dragon's Tongue Beans

Dragon's Tongue Beans

Earlier in the summer I picked these Dragon’s Tongue Beans. Unfortunately I think I kind of screwed up on these. I had been wanting to eat them as snap beans but the ideal time for that was while we were away on our Wabakimi trip. Having never grown beans for drying before, I think I picked them a little too early. The beans that I got from these are wrinkled and immature looking — not shiny and plump like you would expect dried beans to be. Better luck next time I guess. They sure are pretty things though!

Heirloom beets

Chioggia and Golden Beets

I relished this summer in my fetish for fresh beets. I grew a couple varieties of golden beets — Touchstone and Detroit Gold. I didn’t mark them so well so I didn’t really track which did better, but one of the varieties noted that they have a low germination rate. I would say that was true because I didn’t get quite as many of them as Chioggias or the Detroit Reds or Bull’s Blood varieties that I grew. Most of those I pickled. The Bull’s Bloods had a rather rough, almost stringy texture to them, not the solid root vegetable texture you usually see from a beet. Not sure I’ll grow them again.

Carrots - Tonda di Parigi

Tonda di Parigi Carrots

I grew the Chantenay carrots again and they offered up great yields. But I also tried these super adorable Tonda di Parigi carrots. They didn’t yield a huge crop, but that’s okay.

I’m very pleased to report that our rickety, falling down porch is being repaired finally. It wasn’t looking very likely that it was going to be done in the near future, but then we found a contractor working on one of our neighbours places and talked to him, and he offered us a dramatically better rate than anything else we’d seen. The old broken concrete stairs are gone, and they’ve pulled up the horridly weed-infested interlock walkway. The new stairs will be as wide as the porch so I will loose a bit of flower beds and herb garden space, but the flower beds around the house are badly overgrown (again) and need some TLC, this is as good of a reason as any to reinvent them. We also have to adjust the grade of the beds in relationship to the house anyway. I’m very excited to be able to decorate the porch/stairs with potted plants next year.

If I can get to it before the cool weather really takes hold, I need to try to re-stain/seal the edges of my raised beds. I discovered that Costco sells raised bed kits made with composite recycled plastic and ‘wood flour.’ Wish I’d known about these last year — they would have been cheaper and for certain they would have lasted longer. Composite timbers like that are pricey to begin with, but in this kit they are pretty affordable.

Natural dyes for Easter eggs

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Many years ago I tried dying Easter eggs with dyes made from natural foods. It was a little time consuming but a lot of fun seeing what colours I could get from ordinary food items. I suppose you could also use these dyes for things like cloth, yarn, paper, etc. Probably not your hair though. I’m not sure how colour fast these would be with yarn or cloth, but some of the stronger ones would probably work very well. Perhaps I should give that a try sometime…stay tuned!

Anyway, with Easter around the corner I felt like trying it again.

Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

Naturally dyed eggs.

My experience is that you have to boil most of your food items to get the richest colours. Above, the pale pink eggs were made with beets that I just soaked in water for several hours. If I’d boiled them I’m quite sure they would be a much richer pink. The pale yellow ones are from ground saffron I happened to have, which I did heat in water in the microwave for about 5 minutes, but had I boiled it and used more of the saffron, I think they would have been a richer yellow. Better yet, turmeric gives even more colour, although it was the saffron I had handy.

Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

Eggs

You can either hard boil your eggs before you start or boil them in the dye water, but for consistency in cooking the eggs, I feel boiling them first is better. For easier peeling, older eggs (at least a week old) are supposed to work better, although my luck always has it that even that doesn’t help. Supposedly adding some salt to your boiling water helps, but this didn’t save mine from being mangled, either. It’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to make deviled eggs.

How to Hard Boil Eggs
To hard boil eggs, start your eggs in cool water over high heat, covered with at least 1 inch of water. Once they have reached a boil, immediately turn down to low and simmer for 1 minute. Then remove from heat and let stand in hot water for about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of your eggs. Either remove eggs from the heat into ice water or strain the pot and refill with cold water to help the eggs cool down. Hard boiled eggs should be stored in the fridge and eaten within 5 days.

Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

Red onion skins makes a raw umber colour

Natural Dyes
You can get a wide range of colours from natural food items you either already have around the house, or can easily get from any grocery store.

Purple cabbage = blue
Yellow onion skins = orange
Beets = pink
Strong brewed coffee or instant coffee = warm brown
Red onion skins = raw umber or a cool brown
Turmeric or saffron = yellow

Other colours can be obtained from all sorts of items like fruit and herb teas, fruit juices or boiled fruit peels like apples, lemons or oranges, herbs like chili or paprika, or cooked spinach. I chose to make dyes using items that are fairly inexpensive or even waste materials, like the onion skins. The exception is probably the ground saffron, which I happened to have because a friend brought it back from Thailand for me. I thought I had turmeric on hand but I couldn’t find it in my jam-packed spice cupboard. I bet yellow curry powder would also work very well.

Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

Red cabbage makes a fabulous blue

Making the Dyes
To make the dyes, place your food items in a pot with about 2 to 3 cups of water, depending on how many eggs you’re dying and how much of your food material you are using. For the yellow onion skins I had saved up quite a lot and got a very rich orange colour, but the red onion skins I had were a lot fewer and my resulting dye was less red than I expected, resulting in more of a cool brown.  For the beets, I peeled about four beets but I didn’t boil them and I wish I had. For the cabbage, I used 1/4 of the cabbage, chopped. For all dyes, add 1 teaspoon of vinegar to the boiling water. This will help “fix” the dye on the eggs.

Boil your food items for about 10 to 15 minutes. You can then strain out the food materials if you wish. Leaving them in your dye while you soak your eggs could lead to a mottled look, which may be desirable to you.

You can soak your eggs in the dyes in the fridge for several hours for paler results, or overnight for richer hues. Turn then a few times to ensure they dye as evenly as possible on all sides. I soaked all my eggs overnight.

Natural Dyes for Easter Eggs

Dyes, all ready to go

Above, from left to right are the dyes I made: yellow onion skins (for orange), red onion skins (for a cool brown), instant coffee (for a warm brown), beets (for pink), ground saffron (for yellow) and red cabbage (for blue). You could probably also achieve colour blends by soaking eggs in one colour, such as the saffron, for a few hours, and then move it to the cabbage for a few hours to achieve a certain green.

I think this is a great activity for kids because it teaches them that our foods have many uses. It’s also really exciting to see what colours you get from each food item — red cabbage is perhaps the most surprizing colour result.

Once you’re finished soaking your eggs in the dyes, you can leave out on a tea towel or a rack to dry, and then voila! Easter eggs!

Pickled Chioggia Heirloom Beets

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Pickled Chioggia Beets

Pickled Chioggia Beets (heirloom)

It’s the time of year when there is a distinct lag between when I do something and when I can actually get it posted to this site. There is a lot of maintenance now on the garden. Every year about now I begin to second guess if I could handle more veggie gardens, despite how badly I crave having fields of my own fresh produce. There is often more than we can eat, and almost more than I can preserve. Thankfully I can always find people willing to take home grown produce off my hands, and in fact, giving a bit of it away tends to inspire others, and makes me feel great.

Chioggia Beets

Chioggia heirloom beets

My Chioggia heirloom beets have lived up to their promise of a bountiful, early crop. While they seemed to get a bit of a slow start, they are now nearly all ready to be harvested, and some of them are throwing up flower shoots, so last week I had to get busy. This year I wanted to make pickled beets for the first time.

The traditional red beet is usually used for pickling, but I haven’t (yet) grown any of those this year. I might put a few seeds in this week to see if I can’t get a few before the frost. The beets I planted are ridiculously pretty, with their concentric pink and white rings. Pickling them in a way doesn’t really take advantage of their lovely colour, but I’m thoroughly pleased with the glowing pink jars I have on my counter, of this, of one of my favourite kinds of pickles.

Chioggia Beets

Beautiful pink goodness!

I still have a few in the beds. I’d like to try shaving them in really thin chips to have in a salad, to try them out raw and to take advantage of that lovely colour and texture. I think they could take the place of radishes in a mid-summer salad.

Chioggia Beets

Signature concentric rings of pink

Cooked Chioggia Beets

Cooked chioggias

Pickled Beets

  • prepared beets, about 10 cups
  • 2 1/2 cups white vinegar
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp pickling salt
  • 3 tbsp pickling spices (you can buy these premixed or make your own combination. Typically the spices include mustard seed, coriander seed, bay leaves, dill seed, fenugreek, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, red or black peppercorns and cloves – but there are really no limits).
  1. Wash and trim beets. Small, baby beets can be cooked whole, boiled in salted water, but larger beets should be halved or quartered. Chioggia beets cooked relatively quickly, simmered for about 20 minutes, but I find beets really vary in cooking times. They’re done when you can easily pierce with a fork or a skewer. To remove peels, immediately chill in an ice bath after cooking for about 5 minutes. The skins should slip off easily. Further slice your beets as you prefer — I decided to slice mine in rounds but they’re also great in larger pieces.
  2. Tie pickling spices in a square of cheesecloth. Place remaining ingredients and the spice pouch into a large saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil gently for about 15 minutes.
  3. Meanwhile, pack beets into sterilized canning jars. Leave 1/2 an inch space from the rim.
  4. Carefully pour hot pickling brine (minus the spice pouch) into jars to just cover beets, leaving a 1/2 to 1/4 inch space from the rim of the jars.
  5. Place hot snap lids on jars, gently place ring on until just barely tightened.
  6. Process in hot water canning bath for 30 minutes (500 ml jars). Allow to cool. Snap lids should pop down to indicate they are sealed. Any that don’t should be stored in the refrigerator. Sealed jars can be stored in a cool, dark place. Allow at least a week for the beets to develop their full flavour.

Yield: about 6 500 ml jars.