pickled beets and pickled carrots

Well, the weekend kind of got away from me. Friday we had friends over and cooked up a big pot of spaghetti - mostly ingredients from our garden or the farm, which was neat. Canned tomatoes from the garden or Taproot, herbs from the garden, ground hamburger from Kenneth's uncle's farm ... okay, okay, and canned store-bought mushrooms. But still!

Ria was sick most of Saturday so we didn't feel like cooking, so we had spaghetti nests on Saturday ... and on Sunday. (Twirl leftover spaghetti in muffin tins; top with chopped pepperoni, spaghetti sauce, and grated mozzarella cheese, pop in the oven at 350 until heated through and melty.) Nothing much to blog about except that we finally got around to making the pickled beets and carrots I've been planning on making for about two months. The beets we just used the recipe out of the Benardin book, but I've included the recipe for carrots below. I never imagined eating pickled carrots but they're really good! (The recipe calls for 30 carrots but I only had about half of that - but they must have been really big or something because I ran out of syrup to cover them and had to make up more. So you'll have to play with quantities a little depending on how big your carrots are.)

Pickled carrots

30 carrots

2 c water

1 1/3 c sugar

1 c vinegar

1 T pickling spices

sprigs of dill or fennel seeds

Cut the carrots into sticks no longer than the size of jars you're using. Cook until tender-crisp (don't over-cook); drain. Put the spices in a tea bag or cheesecloth bag and boil with water, sugar, and vinegar for about 10 minutes. Pour over carrots; simmer 3 minutes. Put either a spray of dill or about 10 fennel seeds - depending on your taste preferences - in each jar; pack carrots into jars; pour syrup over top. Can 30 minutes.

-Kathy