The thing was that they stopped carrying Harvard beets, which my dad liked. They came in a glass jar, but no one else seemed to make them.
So, thinking that they were going to be difficult, I started searching them. It turned out that this recipe was darned close, so I tweaked it, and voila!
But, of course, you have to care for Harvard beets to begin with. As a child, I didn't like them, but then again, for all that I ate, and I was an adventurous eater, I didn't bother with sweet gherkins or sour cream, either. Tastes change a little as you mature.
What I did like, and always have, is a multi-generation recipe for pickled beets. I know that besides myself and Ds making them, my mother did, which she got from my grandmother who made them, who got it from her mother, my great-grandmother. It probably went back ever farther, but I can only trace it for sure to my grandmother's mother.
You can actually can them, but my mom and grandmother made them in a bowl. They were right, they don't last long! But, to save 'fridge room, I put them in quart jars in the ice box, since they take less room, and use less of the liquid (super easy...vinegar, water, sugar, salt, bay leaf, and I add 2-5 small lumps of dried ginger - not freeze dried, and a single clove, maybe 2. Dh doesn't care for cloves, but doesn't even notice it. The clove and dried ginger just give it a little warmth.)
Bowls in the ice box, even though I use them all the time, drive me crazy, because a lot of them flare at the top which means a less stable base, and wasted space between them. Not so with the jars.
Also, and this is a tip which recycles what people tend to get rid of...use 1-3 qt. pots/saucepans to put away soup, sauce, chili, in the ice box. *Especially* if it no longer has the handle.
They are not flared at the top except the tiny edge/lip, the bottom is wider than a lot of bowls so they're stable, and....they come with a lid! No more Saran Wrap, foil, or stretchy bowl covers.
I do have glass bowls with plastic lids, but after a while, the lids break. The lids to stainless steel pots don't. And, the lid to a pot that you put in the 'fridge, generally will fit the same pot that you cook with.
And, it's easy to find good, 'broken' pots at yard sales, junk shops, etc.
I didn't have what I needed to put something away one day, and said, hmmmm, how about storing it in that old, handless pot? It worked so well that I began doing it regularly.
You can use pots with handles, I have, but you have to turn them just so to make them fit with other food/containers.
Oh, and I suggest stainless specifically.
Well, it's raining here, and I have to heat some food while Dh repackages the chicken food to store it dry. We had some day, the past 2 days, I'll have to update later, but 2 clues are that we nearly froze in the house, and I can't walk on my right foot.
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