Pickled Golden Beets

With Ginger and Star Anise

Please welcome our newest contributor to My Own Ideas, Stephanie Rose. Stephanie is a Master Gardener who lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she has grown over 100 edibles, 400 perennials, and countless other plants in her small urban yard; a hobby that continues to grow with each season. Stephanie writes DIY garden projects, yummy recipes and crafty goodness on her blog, Garden Therapy where she hopes you will find something to inspire you to get outside for a little, well, garden therapy. We are so excited to have her join our community and share some of her yummy recipes and ideas here on the My Own Ideas blog!

Lucky me. My new house is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the farmer’s market. It feels like an oasis in the middle of the city: in a park with a small lake, vendors truck in their handmade goodies and produce fresh from the fields and set up a market. It also happens to be a dog park so on Saturday mornings I leash up the hounds and head over to find some treasures. Last year I was pleased to have come across a ginormous bag of mixed beets. These weren’t ordinary beets; each was about the size of my dogs head! To be fair, he’s a very small dog, but you get the picture, they are much bigger than I can grow in my small garden.

My beet grab bag had blood-red beets, candy-striped Chioggia beets and golden beets. I tried a few recipes for pickling them and this recipe for pickled golden beets with ginger and star anise has quickly become famous. Well, famous at least with my friends and family. Now they are an essential staple in my garden. While I have yet to grow them to the size of trophy beets, at least I have enough that I can make plenty of My Famous Golden Beets Recipe. And if I need more I can always grab the pooches and head out to the market.

Ingredients:
• 3 large golden beets
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup water (could possible reduce this amount to ¾ or ½)
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ½ tsp canning salt
• 2 whole star anise pods
• 1 thumb of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

Directions:
Clean and trim beets. Cover with water in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until beets are tender, about 45 minutes. Rinse and cool. Using a vegetable peeler or scrubber, remove the skin then cut the beets into 3/4” thick cubes. Pack chopped beets into 4-5 sterilized 250ml canning jars.
Add all other ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring regularly until sugar is dissolved. Simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes or until you have the depth of flavour you like. Immediately pour hot pickling liquid over beets leaving 1/4” of headspace.

Seal jars and process in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes. Makes 4 or 5 x 250ml jars