Homemade Pickled Beets

Ingredients

Contains: tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

• 7 to 8 lbs of beets
• 4 cups vinegar (5% acidity)
• 1½ teaspoons canning or pickling salt
• 2 cups sugar or Splenda
• 2 cups water
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 12 whole cloves - about 1 tsp
• 12 allspice nuts (whole) - about 1 tsp
• 4 to 6 onions (approximately 2 to 2½-inch in diameter) (optional)

Directions

1. Selection. The most important step! you need beets that are fresh and crisp. Limp, old beets will make nasty tasting canned beets. Select firm, crisp beets. Remove and discard any soft, diseased, spotted and chewed up beets. How many beets and where to get them you can grow your own, pick your own, or buy them at the grocery store. About 7 pounds of 2- to 2½-inch diameter beets makes about 8 pints of pickled beets. I wouldn't use canned beets; what's the point: most of the flavor is gone from them, and you can always get fresh beets.

2. Wash the jars and lids this is a good time to get the jars ready! The dishwasher is fine for the jars; especially if it has a "sanitize" cycle. Otherwise put the jars in boiling water for 10 minutes.

3. I just put the lids in a small pot of almost boiling water for 5 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" (available from target, other big box stores, and often grocery stores; and available online - see this page) to pull them out.

4. Get the canner heating up rinse out your canner, put the rack in the bottom, and fill it with hot tap water (of course, follow the instruction that came with the canner, if they are different).

5. Put it on the stove over low heat just to get it heating up for later on.

6. Trim the ends and cut into smaller pieces: Just take a sharp knife and trim off beet tops, leaving an inch of stem and roots to prevent bleeding of color.

7. Wash the beets! I'm sure you can figure out how to scrub the beets in plain cold or lukewarm water using your hands or a vegetable brush.

8. Put similar sized beets (hopefully, they're all of a similar size so they take the same time to cook) together with enough boiling water to cover them and cook until tender (usually about 30 to 45 minutes in an open pot, or 10 - 15 minutes in a pressure cooker).

9. Drain and discard the liquid (it would weaken the pickling solution).

10. Cool the beets: You can pour ice over them, or just let them cool on their own. It's just to cool them enough so you can handle them to remove the skins, stems, roots and then slice or quarter them.

11. Trim off the roots and stems. The skins should easily slide off.

12. Slice the beets into ¼-inch slices. You can leave the beets whole (if they are small, say 1 inch or less), or quarter them or slice them into ¼-inch slices. This is to help more fit in the jars and to help the seasoning to penetrate them better.

13. (Optional) Slice the onions: If you like onions in the mix (most people do), peel and thinly slice the onions.