Forty-five lbs. is a lot of beets. I know this because I spent all of Wednesday night and most of Thursday cooking, peeling, and chopping beets. I have never cooked beets before so there was quite a bit of trial and error. My mom assured me that the FUN part of beets is peeling them - that the skins just slip off - but that wasn't happening for me. I was getting really frustrated! Finally I figured out I simply wasn't cooking them long enough! Once I resolved that issue, peeling the beets WAS fun! Slip, slip slip. I even had a tiny beet that the skin slipped off and the beet shot across the room!Finally last night after the kids were all in bed, I got to the point where I was ready to can. By the time I got everything prepped it was 11:00pm! I knew I had enough for three loads - but each load take 30 mins minimum! UGH! When I put the first jar into the water - I heard a CRACK. I lifted the jar back out of the water and discovered that the bottom had broken out. I know the jar and beets and everything were hot when I put them in the water - so I can only assume the jar was really old (I got a bunch of jars off of craigslist from an old lady). The jar was kinda of cloudy looking - so maybe that is what happens when a jar gets old? Anyway - I ended up having to process that lot of jars with a bunch of pickling brine and beets floating around in the water .
Suddenly though - I started feeling REALLY sick. Nauseated, stomach going crazy, all kinds of yuck. AJ was still up so I asked him to pull out the lot and just shut everything down for the night and I would finish everything in the morning. Then I went to bed and prayed I wouldn't vomit. Anyway - around 3 am AJ finally came upstairs - he had finished canning all the beets! How many people in the world have husbands that can and WILL can??? I sure am lucky!
So all said and done - we got 21 quarts of pickled beets - but 1 quart was lost.
Rating: 3 Lollipops
7 comments:
Wow, what a great hubby. And I'm impressed with the beets. I've never done them, but they sure look pretty!
Beets don't smell very good when they're cooking, but I sure like eating them! My dad does all of our canning. Aren't men who can awesome?!
I have been craving pickled beets for about 2 weeks! Now I am really craving them....like I need some NOW! Cool that your hubby canned. My hubby will can just about anything BUT beets!
The important question: Can AJ can can?
I know the work it took to can all that ! Good job helping AJ ! Hope you are O.K. Bethany...
Pickled beets are one of my all time favorites... Amost too pretty to eat...NOT !
BTW, newer jars rarely have problems...if the temp of the water and the temp of the glass is not nearly identical, older jars
will have bottoms that bust out or side cracks that ruin your produce.
Oh, forgot to ask, what color are your hands or did you wear gloves ?
I'm so jealous! No beets for me this year... Hopefully next!
They look so pretty!
Post a Comment