Let's Pickle!

It’s hard to believe summer is over and it’s time to turn our culinary thoughts to pumpkins and apples. However, I'm going to squeeze in one more summer recipe this year before we talk about pickling. I kept reading about Barefoot Contessa’s recipe for a summer tomato soup that has rave reviews. I made it last week and add my rave review to the list! It is a cold tomato soup called a Salmorejo, which is made from tomatoes and bread. It's well known in southern Spain. This recipe called for tomatoes, a red pepper, red onion and country white bread, along with other staple panty ingredients. So thanks to my trips all summer to the Farmer’s Market at our library, I was set!  Here’s the recipe.

Pickle Time

My onions are pickling

Now to turn our thoughts to pickling. My brother and his wife recently had tacos at one of their favorite taco places and loved the addition of pickled onions. He asked if they were hard to make and I told him they were super easy. I love pickled onion on salads, burgers, hot dogs – just about anything, so I whipped up a quick batch. I found this simple recipe on the website Love and Lemons. It’s quick and easy and these onions will keep up to 3 weeks in the fridge. See the booklist below for books and ideas about pickling.

Then a friend mentioned she was making pickled beets, which I love! So I kept on pickling! She uses her mother’s recipe and I had some beets from the farmer’s market. Here’s her recipe:

Pickled Beets from P. Martin/M. Sheahan

• 1 ½ pounds of beets of similar size or cut to similar size, cooked
• ¾ cup vinegar (I used apple cider in this batch)
• 3 T sugar
• 1 tsp Worchestershire
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp crushed fresh garlic
• 1/8 tsp pepper

Cover beets with water and cook until fork tender. Drain beets, saving ¼ cup of the beet water. Cool beets until you can handle them. Remove the peels, which should come right off in cold water. Slice or chunk beets into a large container or divide them into 3-cup size containers.

While the beets are cooking or cooling, combine the remaining ingredients.

After beets are prepped, add the ¼ cup beet water you saved to the vinegar mix. Bring the vinegar mix to a boil and boil 1 to 2 minutes. Pour juice over warm beets in containers.

This is a classic quick pickle beet recipe and I really liked the results. I love pickled beets with creamy goat cheese as a salad or starter.

More Pickled Beets

Fennel

I wasn’t sure I really had enough pickled beets, so I tried one more recipe that intrigued me with the addition of fennel. Plus, who could resist the name of Fancy Schmancy Pickled Beets? They were so good and I really liked the pickled fennel. I think I might have enough pickled beets to get me through the next couple of weeks!

As the seasons change, so does the abundance of produce. I look forward to the next few weeks with fall fruits and vegetables.