I like my fresh beets al dente, you can't get that in a can; yellow beets have been available more readily and I love mixing both on a plate as a side dish.
I do eat canned beets though, I am addicted to beets in all forms.

Pickled beets in Quebec are a staple, they have as much shelf space in grocery stores as dill pickles. When I'm in Florida, I find small jars in the exotic food section and I'll buy 8 jars at a time.

I try to limit my family's intake of canned food because of BPA. From what I've heard that's been banned in Canada and hopefully we'll follow suit soon.

ynnej, I can my own, and that takes care of that problem. I did try freezing beets, but they don't freeze well, either blanched or unblanced, they get kind of mushy and watery, it's a horrible texture.

You do need a pressure canner to can beets, but you can make pickled beets with just a water bath. I opened a homemade jar just before Easter and used the pickling brine to make pickled eggs. It's a family tradition for me, and my mother loves them. And, of course, she eats the pickled beets along with them.

Annie

Wow, Annie! Props to you! That's awesome.

Had to open the thread to see what was so gross! :-) They turned my pee bright red once! It was utterly terrifying until I figured it out.

ynnej, beets are really easy to can, you just wash, either peel or blanch and peel, cut them up and pack them with boiling water and salt. Into the pressure canner they go and the work is done, now you just time them and wait.

Pickled is almost as easy. Peel, leave the small ones whole, cut the big ones. Make a brine, put he beets in jars, add the hot brine, lids, boiling water bath. Easy as can be, really.

As most of my friends here know, I have a big organic garden and can/freeze/pickle/dehydrate everything I grow that we don't eat fresh. I grow grass fed beef and have some chickens that'll be in the freezer in just a couple of months. I think I'm going to get some more laying hens too, I miss my farm fresh eggs.

My DH and I bought the farm I grew up on and we're going to build a house out there with a root cellar, so I can store beets all winter without canning them. Oh yeah.....

I've been doing it my whole life, so I was an adult before I realized that everyone didn't garden and can.

Many of us here do home canning. Chase/Sharon has great dill pickles, Readinglady is my preserves and bread guru, Grainlady does a lot of dehydrating, plus grinds her own grains for flour. LindaC makes awesome crabapple jelly and I'm "famous" for my salsa. Search for "Annie's Salsa" and you'll get a lot of threads. Wizardnm/Nancy makes the best apple maple jam I've ever had. Nancy/nancedar makes preserves and sells them at the farm market and sent me fig preserves that were so good I didn't even share them with my girls.

We are a talented group. (grin)

Annie

As long as we're talking about beets, what the h*** are Harvard beets? I like beets okay, but are Harvard beets better than Yale beets? I was a graduate of a state school, so obviously I must bow and scrape before those Ivy Leaguers (hey, they've done a great job on running our country, haven't they?--lest you think that's a partisan political comment, our current president is Columbia/Harvard; Dubya was Yale/Harvard Business; Clinton was Georgetown/Oxford/Yale Law; Poppa Bush was a Yalie--and EVERY member of the Supreme Court is from either Yale Law School or Harvard Law School).

Are there any recipes from, say, Ohio State? I would trust that far more than an Ivy League recipe. Or, maybe Prof. Peter Schickele's employer, The University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople. (On the liner notes of a PDQ Bach CD I once read the wonderful statement that a 'milihelen' is the amount of beauty sufficient to launch one ship. Love it.)

Arley, I went to a state school too, so what do I know about Harvard? (grin) I did find this, though, from the
Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink by John F. Mariani, who says that the dish was created three centuries ago at an English tavern called Harwood's. Presumably, one of its customers, a Russian emigre opened a restaurant up in Boston under the same name in 1846. But since he kept pronouncing his restaurant's name like "Harvard," so the dish he brought from England became known as 'Harvard beets.'

Is that right? Who the heck knows, but I'm sure it has nothing to do with college. Or Ohio State. Or Ferris State either, although my own tiny little Ferris State University Bulldogs hockey team made it all the way to the Frozen Four this year, first time ever.

I don't think anyone from Ferris has ever been elected President, though.

Annie

I hated beets as a kid - love them now. I like canned ok. My favorite beet dish of all came from a friend from the Caucuses. I make my own versions now which would probably horrify his ancestors. They make a salad of beets, pomegranate and walnuts - beautiful and delicious.

I love beets. During the summer when the farmers markets are open, I buy one or two bunches a week. Sometimes red, sometimes, pink, and sometimes gold. When I was a kid my mom would buy canned beets -- regular and pickled. I liked them back then. But since roasting them myself, I think canned beets pale in comparison. I've tried boiling fresh beets and they taste about the same as canned. I wouldn't bother buying fresh beets if all I was going to do was boil them. But the roasted ones are wonderful. I just wash them well and plop them into a baking dish with a little bit of olive oil. I cover the top with foil and bake at 350 until done. Once they're cool enough to handle, the skins pretty much slip off. They're great by themselves or sliced in a salad.

The "toilet" effect doesn't bother us since we know what to expect.

I wonder if I did something wrong as the skins most decidedly did not slip off. Did I roast too long or not long enough? Interesting that you don't peel them, dcarch. It didn't occur to me not to but heck, I eat the peel on most other veggies so why bother? If I hadn't had to peel them, the effort involved woulds down about 90%.

Honestly, I didn't even compare the prices of fresh vs canned. (And by canned I mean the kind that come in a tin can not something I've actually created or processed my own self... I'm not that talented!) I will do so though and if the price warrants it, maybe I'll roast some again to see if they either peel more easily or are ok unpeeled.

Didn't think about adding them to salads raw either. So I might try that. I did save the green tops for salads, they're good.

Once I figured out what was causing the pink, I was ok. But it did mystify me a bit at first! So yeah, now that I expect it, I won't be astonished again.

Did you wrap them in foil? The peel is generally how I check if they're done- once it slips off they're good to go.

Nope. Just put them in a baking dish and stuck em in the oven. They were in there about 45 minutes on 325. (I was baking a brisket at that temp for several hours so it seemed like a good time to do the beets as well.)

I guess they should have baked longer?

Beets are one of the few things I will eat out of the can. When my kids were small they only ate them if I mixed a little ranch with them with the juice. Now that they are grown and married they still eat them that way AND their kids too

I roast/bake beets in a casserole dish that's covered with foil. The beets are unpeeled but tossed with a drizzle of olive oil. I usually bake them in my toaster oven at 350 degrees, and it takes at least an hour. I actually don't time them -- just set and do other stuff. Eventually I start smelling them and check. I poke them with a skewer to see if they're cooked all the way through. Once they are cool enough to handle, the skins slip off fairly easily. The roasting without any added liquid makes them sweet and earthy while the foil baking keeps them from drying out.

I've never tried roasting them dry like potatoes, carrots, or winter squash. How does that turn out?

i KEEP CANNED BEANS AND CANNED BEETS IN MY PANTRY, ALL OF MY OTHER VEGETABLES ARE FRESH OR FROZEN. THE ONLY THING i MISS WITH CANNED BEETS IS NO GREENS (SECOND ONLY TO YOUNG SWISS CHARD IN MY OPINION). NO DIFFERENCE IN TASTE BETWEEN FRESH AND CANNED BEETS IN MY OPINION. LOVE TO USE WHOLE CANNED SMALL BEETS TO MAKE PICKLED EGGS AND BEETS, USE SLICED IN SALADS AND AS A SIDE DISH. LOVE THEM.

I just googled wirepaladin2000 and followed a link. I don't recommend doing that.

Nope, I wouldn't even have thought of googling that, LOL, and I'd have lost attention as soon as I had to go to another link. Short attention span.

Oh look, a chicken.

It might go with my beets, which I love fresh or canned, also pickled.

Seriously, though, thanks for the warning, FOAS. What the heck is happening around here anyway? Grrrr....

Annie

What's happening? Exactly what several "paranoid" folks warned would happen when GW hooked up with social media. We may be dinosaurs and resistant to change, but evidently we were right.

Yes, I kind of thought that was going to happen. I don't "do" Facebook, I don't Twitter or Tweet or text, but apparently I'm going to have to live with the results any way. (sigh)

Annie

I'm with Annie, I love beets and beet greens any way I can get them. I usually can pickled beets every year to use in salads and nothing beats a roasted beet (IMO).

We've been eating spring beet greens for the past few weeks as I've thinned out my beet seedlings in the garden. Yum!

Whenever I include beets on the weekly menu, I say we're going to get a visit from "Chief Red Butt" LOL! This recipe is my favorite beet recipe to date:

Roasted Root Vegetables with Horseradish Vinaigrette

2 large sweet potatoes
4 large parsnips (or carrots)
6 med beets
3 T EVOO
1 ý tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Peel potatoes and cut into cubes, peel parsnips/carrots and cut into slices, peel beets and cut into wedges. Toss potatoes & parsnips with oil, and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place potatoes & parsnips on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and sprinkle w/ salt & pepper. Toss beets with oil in separate bowl and arrange on a separate cookie sheet/pan; sprinkle w/salt & pepper. Roast at 400 degrees for 20 ��" 25 min or until tender. Cool before adding vinaigrette.

Horseradish Vinaigrette

1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1/c cup EVOO
2 T horseradish
1 T chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 T tarragon (fresh or ý T of dried)
1 T Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 ý tsp honey
ý tsp salt
ý tsp pepper

Whisk together all ingredients. Serve immediately, or chill up to 4 days.

Kathy, I'm happy to see you here again!

So, how is life going in your new digs? Growing stuff like crazy?

Annie

Fresh beets ARE more work than just opening a can, but I think well worth the effort. One of my favorite veggies and especially like them pickled. If it's cool enough to turn oven on, I just put in big packet of heavy-duty foil, drizzle with olive oil, and liberal amount of S&P... into oven till "done"... knive goes in/out easily.

I probably buy 3-4 bunches at a time (a dozen or so) and make it worth the time and "trouble". Once roasted and peeled, I stick them on this yard sale, spiral cutter and make into "spaghetti" strands... yeah, it is messy and I do end up with red-tinged fingers. Then I pour on the "pickle"... lately have been using Kraft Mango Chipotle "anything" sauce. I end up with a LOT of beets, so will put in half pint jars... not that much work and beats the heck out of housework!

As for "disgusting" veggie info. Love asparagus enough that its bathroom side-effect would NEVER make me stop eating it. Eat enough spinach (cooked or raw, fresh or frozen) and your poop ends up very DARK green for a few days. When friend's boys were young, ONLY cooked veggie they'd eat as carrots... also ate a lot of those "baby" ones as raw snacks... their SKIN took on an orangey tint... NOT harmful.

Garden girl, thanks for posting your recipe. I am picturing your horseradish vinaigrette on a sliced grilled steak salad this summer for a night when I don't want to cook indoors.

As for beets, I like them both fresh and canned and also as a base for pickled eggs, or "red beet eggs" as they're often called in our area.

I love fresh vegetables of any kind but when it comes to beets I would just as soon open a can than cook them because of the mess (maybe if I used the green part I would feel differently though). I love the Del Monte brand in beets and also - don't cringe - Del Monte green beans in a can. I was raised on all canned vegetables and those darn green beans just taste good to me.

The one veg I'll NEVER cook is beets. I really like beets - but either raw (grated with vinaigrette) or baked. Baking enhances and concentrates the sweetness of beets, whereas cooking waters it all down literally speaking.

I'm attaching a recipe that advises against so much as washing the beets prior to baking. It says wipe the dirt off the beets instead of washing them.

I myself haven't yet gone to such extremes (though I'm tempted now I've found this recipe). I do wash my beets, chop off the roots (as they always remind me of rat tails), wrap up the beets in silver foil and bake them for 2 hours at 250 celcius (480 Farenhait).

Baked beets are really nice with cream/roquefort cheese, but they also take kindly to vinaigrette. Baking them is really no more trouble than baking potatos.

Here is a link that might be useful: Baked Beets - the Purist Version

Interesting to see this thread revived. I still do eat a lot of canned beets. Every once in a while I notice the fresh ones in the produce department and breifly consider buying some. But then I remember the pink/red fingers and come to my senses. I dunno, it's just too much trouble.

klseiverd, the "spaghetti" beet strands sound really cool, though.

Love beets. Always have fresh in the fridge and only buy when the greens look good and fresh for soups, salads etc. But i don't by canned anything. Always cook form scratch and fresh.
(my pantry does have a few things...coconut milk, some canned fishy DH likes, but not much)

When i pull out a half chicken from the freezer, from a grilling or smoking past event, i always start with a bed of beet, potato, cubed big chunks, garlic head, (top sliced off) toss in evoo and rosemary, roast 20 minutes, then add cubed sweet potato, red pepper, celery, etc...anything else i have...roast 10 more min, halved brussel sprouts, asparagus... then lay
the chicken on top to heat and crisp. Nearly once a week in the winter months.
I've never peeled them. Just a scrub and off with the end tail and root bit.

Beets are the star of my garden. Six varieties and one just for the green tops. Johnny's has a 'early wonder tall top' that i grow just for the greens. I plant too close together for much of a beet crop but i do get some babies in september. 1/4 lb of seeds for cheap. (third season on that same packet)

love all things fresh beets. Yeah i get some stains on the cutting board but goes away in a few days...last nights rhubarb/beet sauce for lamb sausage made a mess...but worth it!

The bathroom event is just a reminder that you are what you eat. My obsession with fresh habanero, (just a tiny bit has such a nice flavor), but much more eventful the next day! (haha)

Here is a link that might be useful: beet greens

I read this thread when it was first revived and ignored it because of the spam. But now that it is fully awake again i'll add. On a fairly early post someone mentioned if you freeze beets they get watery and they do if you don't cook them first not just blanch but cook them. Then they freeze fine. I grow my own beets and freeze them all the time. I used to can them but my canner is a 2 burner and I now have a ceran top stove and am afraid to use it on there. So I freeze them now. This also works for me as nobody else in my family likes them so I can freeze in individual portions. I have never had raw beets so will give it a try this summer maybe with vinaigrette they will like it.

I forgot! But I did actually buy some beets to eat raw. I grated them and added to my salads. They were really good but again, everything involved turned red. I probably just need to look for other color beets!

Funny beet story. Don't be eating while you read.

Years ago my parents were going on a trip to reno with some out of town friends. They drove down the night before and had dinner ( fresh beets) then flew out in the morning. Sometime the group was separated each going to their own favorite casino's they were supposed to meet up later. But their friends never showed up. He had spent the day in emergency due to" blood" in his urine. Test after test they could not find what was wrong then someone finally asked what have you been eating in the last day. He started with the food from that day ...............then..........................He remembered the Beets.

CLBlakey, I've just read your post over lunch (I'm intrepid and it's lunch time now in Israel).

I don't remember it myself because I was too little at the time, but my mother told me the first time she ever tried to get me to eat beets - I guzzled them. Naturally, I peed RED. Naturally, she rushed me to the pediatrician, who was very old and experienced. She told him hysterically her little girl was peeing blood. First thing he asked her was what I had eaten recently and it all fell into place. She did hold it against me though for years and years afterwards :)

WinterCat- Everyone needs a family joke LOL Beets and Asparagus seem to fall into that category for our family. BTW I love your country. Hoping someday to go back again but not with a tour it was like watching a movie on fast forward.

My beets are barely up and now I can't wait to try that vinaigrette, Kathy (hi!)...it sounds wonderful.

Yeah I've scared myself a few times the morning after pigging out on fresh baby beets, even though I know better, lol.

Re: fresh vs. canned... I think fresh baby beets are special, but once they get big, there's not that much difference. I've been growing an heirloom mix which gives me a nice range of colors. We've just eaten them fresh or stored in the fridge, but I planted a longer row this year. Hopefully will get enough to try canning some different colors. Love golden beets canned...now I want to try the white ones. Not sure about the pink ones though. Trying to picture them on a plate with other food. Maybe for Valentine's Day. Or with pink mac and cheese...

Mine are barely poking their heads out of the ground too. It has been a very cool rainy spring here. Only 2 of my tomato plants made it after transplant.

I like to feed the ravens, crows, and pretty much any hungry critter. They eat everything I give them!! I am always trying to think of good, healthy, yummy, inexpensive foods to give them. I gave them some canned beets along with many other foods. Everything disappeared but the beets. Maybe they were too salty, but I read if u rinse them, u can reduce the sodium by as much as 40%.

Can I make a beet mousse from canned beets? I am having a tea party and want to make a triple sandwich, one spread will be a pesto mousse and the other half will be a beet mousse. Can this be done with the canned beets? Thanks

Depending on the recipe, it probably can be done, especially if the beets are well drained, but why not fresh beets (easy to steam)? Or the vacuum packed cooked beets they have in the produce section? That way there's no issue with it tasting like the can, being mooshy or anything like that.

Thanks, I have never cooked beets so I thought I would get the canned ones. Maybe I will try fresh beets. Thanks for answering

No problem. So, in my opinion the best way to cook beets is to steam them. Just put them in a steamer until soft (stick a knife tip in). The skins are supposed to slide right off after about a minute, though I never have much luck with that. I think the beets I get are too young and don't have thick enough skins. They're also easy to peel, but you might consider food service gloves (or a plastic bag) to keep from dyeing your hand.

Good luck with them. I hope your tea is a smashing success!

I include beets with my veggie mix regularly. I never really thought much about the peeling, but I paid attention tonight. Not much differerent than a potato I'd say? I've never bought canned; do they still have a crunch? If not, I'll pass.

But...FOAS, does crunch matter in mousse?

Doubt it, but I'm not making mousse which is only one tiny part of this long conversation ;)

Ha ha, thanks so much you two. I think I will try the fresh beets. Like I said, I have never made them I also have never had canned beets. I always thought I didn't like them until this past year when I had them in salad, mind you, I'm 54 years old. It took that many years for me to discover them. I'm of Italian descent so they were never important at Thanksgiving, we preferred the pasta side dishes....lol

I'm not far behind you, Judith, upper 40's and probably bought my first beet two years ago or so. Was shocked that I actually liked it! Now I have them on hand all the time.

LOL! But FOAS, mousse is this year's discussion!

There was a mid-20th C. dish that was (it pains me to say) popular (I only know about it because it was something my father's parents fed to my mother when she first met them, and she still talks about it). It was canned beets prepared with butter. I'm sure there must be some kind of delicious, fresh food, fine dining version of buttered beets, but there's no better way to conserve and highlight the can flavor than heating it in butter! I've had canned julienned beets served to me in salads, and they're fine. I'm not a total can snob, and I use canned tomato products and corn. But there are some vile things that come out of cans too.

There's a good reason why a lot of Americans are scared of beets. :)

OH!!!

I'm a can snob. Never buy canned or rarely. Just about everything is better frozen or fresh. If not fresh i don't buy it and wait for seasonal. Beets are alway available and i use fresh, nearly raw, or roast.. Just made a slaw with a big golden beet to go with a brisket. ...20 min ago.

I prepare beets like many other veggies, especially cabbage and carrots. I sautee them, usually with salt and massive amounts of garlic/garlic powder. And, bonus, the skins on beets are usually thin enough that you don't need to peel them. Just chop them small or slice them into rounds and sautee until you see a little brown.