This Years BEET Harvest

 We got a few jars of beets this year from our garden.

Thanks to Jesse for harvesting them for us and cleaning up the garden a bit too.

John working intently to get the beets cleaned and ready for the boiling pot.

 This is the blanching stage, as they hit the COLD water so the skins can come of easily.

 I sliced up all the cooked beets ready to put into the jars.

 This ONE beet I photographed last year is certainly worth a repeat spotlight this year. What a BIG BEET!!!

It filled the entire large cooking pot.

 And it took the large platter to be big enough to have room to be able to cut it up into pieces for the jars.

 For a size comparison, I photographed it next to a regular teaspoon.

Without any MAMMOTH Beets this year, like that one above, we didn't get as many jars made up this year. Only six small preserving jars and 2 coffee jars. We had to use coffee jars as we didn't plan on enough lids for the jars. It still worked out well with the coffee jars as those went directly into the fridge and we're using them right away.

Here is our secret recipe.... *that isn't so secret any longer. lol ;-)

12 Cups prepared beets
2 Cups vinegar ( I doubled all the ingredients for the syrup, so 4 cups of vinegar etc)
2 Cups sugar
2 Cups water
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 TBLSP whole cloves in cheesecloth ( I used 1tsp ground cloves directly into the syrup mix)

Prepare beets. Select small young 1 1/2 - 2" beets. Scrub and leave root and 1-2" of stem on. Cook until tender. Dip in cold water and remove skins. Leave whole; slice or quarter larger beets.

Combine remaining ingredients in saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil 5 minutes. Remove spice bag. Pack hot, sterlized jars with beets. Pour hot syrup over beets to completely cover them. Seal. Yields 6 pints (3L)