Quick Pickled Beets and Carrots

4 med. golden beets

2 big carrots

1-1/2c water

1c apple cider vinegar

1/2 - 1t fresh ground black pepper

1t pumpkin pie spice

1-2 bay leaves

1/4c turbinado or brown sugar

1 sm. - med. yellow onion - sliced thin

Scrub and chop or slice the beets and carrots removing any bad spots, but don't peel. Combine with all the above ingredients except the sliced onion. Heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a low boil, cover and simmer on low heat, 20 minutes or until the vegetables are just starting to get tender. Stir in the onion for the last 5 minutes of cooking, cover and shut off the heat. Let this cool to room temperature on the burner.

This can be eaten cold, warmed on a green salad with feta cheese, or heated as an accompaniment or 'side' to meat and potatoes. . .Lin

Spiced-Pickled Vegetables

To start, I used 3/4 of that monster cabbage. The leftover piece was 1-1/2#, so I'm thinking there's about 2 pounds of green cabbage in this recipe! I also added carrots, celery, radishes, garlic, onion, poblano pepper. Use whatever you have, that you'd like to pickle. My pickled vegetables are always heavy on cabbage, because I love it! You can go with any proportions you want, they're your vegetables, do what you like, in cooking, recipes should only be a guideline!

When the vegetables are sliced, cubed or chopped, put them in a big stainless or glass bowl and salt them with a heaping tablespoon of salt. Gently stir, mix this around every so often for at least an hour. Notice how great they smell! While the vegetables are salting, mix up the brine in a 6-8 quart pot.

BRINE:

3c white vinegar

3c fresh cold water

1/2c white balsamic vinegar

1c light brown sugar

make a bouquet garni with 2t of each spice/herb in a coffee filter or a piece of paper towel. Staple to close:

black peppercorns

whole cloves

dry dill

2 cut-up bay leaves

After an hour, you'll notice the salt has pulled lots of excess liquid out of the vegetables. This will make them crisper. Rinse and drain them well. Bring the brine to a simmer, add the spices, simmer a few minutes then turn off the heat for 15 minutes. Bring back to a simmer, remove the spices and add the vegetables.  Stir to mix and give each piece a good bath. After this comes to a simmer again, ladle everything into clean jars and seal with hot lids. If the seals hold, they will keep for many months in the pantry. If not, refrigerate and use within a month or so.

Once the jars were filled, I still had lots of brine left which I could use or throw out.  I sliced the rest of the cabbage, salted it for an hour, drained, rinsed then simmered it in the brine for a minute before filling a quart jar with just the sliced pickled cabbage and brine. All my jars sealed. .😁. .Happy Pickling. . .Lin