Pickling

I didn’t go to work today as the library software was undergoing some sort of maintenance. Heather suggested I stay home because there’d be not much to do.

So I had an unexpected session at the gym, coffee in town, shop then walk home. The dogs had a walk with me rather than Sue, I managed three loads of washing and I didn’t have to rush home to meet Richard the Eggman with his delivery. All in all, it was a lovely day.

As if to make it even better, the weather was beautiful. Some people are calling it an Indian Summer but, given it was only one day, I’m not sure that that constitutes an entire season.

The other unexpected thing I did today was pickle some more beetroot. It’s so delicious, it never lasts long so this time I used two bunches.

After peeling and cubing, I popped them into a saucepan along with sherry vinegar, filtered water and various bits and pieces from my spice cabinet (secrets, obviously) before lighting the gas beneath it for a good solid 20 minutes of boiling.

This time I also added two whole garlic cloves. I read somewhere it was good during the boiling phase as long as you removed them before jarring up. We shall see.

Of course there was a lot of red juice everywhere, including on my hands so there was a big clean up operation afterwards. This is obviously the worst bit.

After the requisite boiling time, I let the saucepan sit and cool a bit before moving the whole shebang into two glass jars. Well, minus the garlic. These sat on the counter until cold. They then went into the fridge for a jolly good feed on tomorrow.

Naturally I had a test taste. I don’t think perfect would be an exaggeration.