In a Pickle...

It feels like Christmas! The ground is hard and glittery with frost and everything looks as if it has been heavily starched. We walked to school this morning, partly because I don't quite trust myself on the bike that I am borrowing (mine was stolen a couple of weeks ago) but mainly so that we could practise skids as we marched through the icy wind, blowing puffs of smoke from our mouths and leaving flattened trails on the grass verges and school field. Only 16 more sleeps to go!!

The last of our beetroot was harvested on Sunday. It always feels rather sad when we bring in the last of a particular crop so we roasted some of them alongside our chicken and ceremoniously ate them for Sunday dinner and the rest were set aside to be savoured and pickled for Christmas.

There was not quite as much as I had anticipated but I would hazard a guess at somewhere in the region of 1.3kg (I completely forgot to weigh it so have guesstimated it using potatoes instead!). We planted a selection of varieties this year, Beetroot Detroit and Beetroot Golden (both firm favourites ) and we also had a new selection pack of seeds that contained some white ones (they look like turnips but do actually taste sweet) and some ringed ones (very pretty when sliced).

This is my first attempt at pickling but I find the whole idea of throwing open my cupboard to reveal shelf upon shelf of jars of preserved fruit and vegetables hugely appealing . The potential for an array of colours, shapes and flavours to dip into throughout the year is crying out for me to embrace this as my favoured preservation method and I fully intend to experiment with this over the next twelve months.

For my pickled beetroot I adapted the spices in a BBC Good food recipe to include fennel seeds and juniper berries as my main flavours and am now keeping my fingers crossed that it works! I will let you know how it goes but on the assumption that the finger crossing works and all is good, here is the recipe.

Sweet Pickled Beetroot

1 – 1.5kg Beetroot

Drizzle of honey

Oil for roasting

200g Caster Sugar

300ml White Wine Vinegar

2 Star Anise

4 Juniper Berries (crushed)

½ tsp Fennel Seeds (crushed)

Scant pinch ground cloves

2 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4, wash and scrub the beetroot and place in a large roasting tin. Dribble over 1 - 2 tsp of honey and a good slug of oil and mulch everything around so that the beetroot are glossy and well covered.

Cover the roasting tin with tinfoil and roast for an hour to an hour and a half until tender when speared with a knife. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before rubbing off the skin.

Roughly chop the cold beetroot and pack tightly into a large sterilised kilner jar .

Pour the vinegar, sugar, spices and 200ml of cold water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for about 2 minutes, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, stir in the balsamic vinegar.

Carefully pour the hot vinegar over the beetroot to completely cover and leave to cool with the lid off. Once cool pour the olive oil on top and seal the jar tightly.

This will keep in the fridge for up to a month.