Canned Beets Recipe

            The beet is a root vegetable red/purple in color and is known as garden beet; it is grown worldwide and there are many cuisines of beet like beet-ginger chutney for Thanksgiving, beet birthday cake etc. It is very easy to grow and sometimes may be used for landscaping. ‘Canned Beets Recipe' is the topic of this article; how to can the garden beet for future use and enjoy all the beet cuisines including Thanksgiving chutney and home made salad with beet, lettuce and other home grown fresh crunchy vegetables.

            Canned Beets Recipe

            In order to can beets at home in a jar one has to use a few supplies.

 Pressure Canner – A hot water bath can be used for the final stage of canning the beets. But canning has low temperature to kill spores that helps to make toxin that causes botulism. The other option of using pressure canner is preferable. For a safe operation a canner that holds 4quart jars should be used; a 12-16 quart pressure canner should be fine. The pressure canner has pressure release valve that can be set before hand to get the desired cooking temperature. One should be careful about the pressure canner lid with airtight gaskets in order to prevent high-pressure air leak. 

 Canning Jars - jars are available in many sizes like wide mouth, narrow both, half gallon, quart, pint, and half pints.

            Canning Seals and Rings – the screw band fitted with flat lid inside, lid has sealing compound on the inside rim. Lid may or may not be reusable.

            Jar Lifter – is used to handle the hot jars

            Large pot or blancher – for cooking beet

Bowls

            Large Spoons

            Sharp Knife

            Towels and dish clothes

            Ingredients – Beets, canning slat

            Preparation – Prepare jars and pressure cooker, jars should be clean and hot, pressure should have 2-3 inches of hot water, collect the roots, group the roots of equal size, clean, wash, cut the stem about 2 inches, and clean all the small roots around the main rot ball, cook the roots in boiling until the skin is about to come out, test by scraping with a spoon, remove the cooked beets and keep in a very cold water, when the beets are cool take skin off, cut off the tops, slice the beets to the desired size, use a knife to remove the stubborn spots, fill the cans with beet pieces leaving 1 inch space at the top, add canning salt water (optional) in ratio of  ½ teaspoon to 1 pint, place the cover after removing the air bubbles of the jar and tighten. Place the jars in the pressure canner leaving about 1 inch space at the top. Set the pressure regulator and heat the pressure canner for 30 minutes for hot pack pints or 35 minutes for hot quart pints. Adjust the pressure cooker setting as per altitude.