Heart Beets

So, I've been commissioned to make pickles for my sister's wedding. I'm quite honored, and I want them to be really delicious, but of course I'm nervous for a couple of reasons. I'm doing pickled beets, mangoes, and my blue-ribbon wasabeans. The wedding is in early July. So I really need to get the beets done, like, NOW so that they will have time to mellow in the jars and be super tasty in time. I'm worried I'm cutting the time on those too close. I'm worried that I won't find the right mangoes. I'm worried I won't find local green beans in time. Worry worry worry. And then I have to get all these pickles down to the Caribbean. Yeah. The wedding is in St. Croix. But I have such a great idea for the beets, and I came up with such an amazingly delicious recipe for the mangoes, and wasabeans, come on! Of course I want to serve my pickles to 100 people who haven't tasted them before! These could be 100 people who want to buy Jill Pickles next year. (More on THAT later!)


Anyway my plan for last Saturday was to hit a couple of farmer's markets, recruit a couple of helpers, converge on my mom's kitchen and knock out the beets and mangoes. Then I got word that Frog Bottom Farm would have garlic scapes at the St. Stephen's farmer's market! Change of plans! Not knowing if they'd have them again, I had to jump on them. So I'll be pickling mangoes as soon as I post this... So. Run to St. Stephens to get garlic scapes, grab some breakfast at the Boka Tako truck (I had the breakfast quesadilla. YUM!) But for my grand beet scheme I needed really big beets, like 2" diameter at least, and all the beets there were really cute little baby beets. So I couldn't get my beets there. No sweat, I needed to head out to the Manakin Farmer's Market too, since the guy who sharpens my knives, Mr. Leonard's Sharpening Service was out there that day. He alternates between that market and the St. Stephen's market and he is THE BEST!! Your knives will be sharper than the day you bought them! Seriously, take your knives, scissors, lawn implements, whatever to him. He is awesome. I picked up my first local cherry tomatoes of the season, and some elephant garlic scapes at the Manakin Market (OMG YUM!), but alas, no big beets! Time was ticking away, so I gave up and went to Whole Foods.

SCORE!

These things were bigger than softballs! They were exactly what I needed. I got 12 pounds of them. That was like 10 beets. Seriously. I had to boil them for about 25 minutes just to get the skins off.

Then into about 10 pounds of ice in an ice bath.

The skins came off with relative ease. The ones I left in the ice water the longest were a little more ornery. Eventually I got them all naked. I apologize in advance that some of my pix are blurry... You'll get over it.

Then came the part I really needed my assistants for. This is what makes these the coolest beets ever, and explains the name. And also this is what made this process take about four hours longer than normal pickled beets:

I went to my favorite store, Sur La Table, and got these small heart-shaped cookie cutters. I drafted my boyfriend, my mom, and my business partner (YES! Jill Pickles has a real business parter to do this thing for real!) to be my sweatshop workers and cut hearts out of slices from these monster beets! HEART BEETS! It took forever. It started slow:

But soon we had to switch to a larger bowl.

It was super messy. We all looked like we'd been butchering something horrible.

But there was remarkably little waste.

Soon it was time to make the brine. Spices....

Those went into some cider vinegar. I sterilized the jars, then it was time to pack! I put a little secret something in the bottom of each jar. This is blurry on purpose so you won't know what it is... (riiiiiight...)

Then I packed up the jars nice and tight! I'm totally getting better at that. And even packing them as tightly as I could, I still got NINE PINTS of hearts and 5 pints of scraps (yeah, I pickled the scrap bits. They're still going to be super yummy! I'll just eat those myself. Or give them to friends or something. Those were organic Whole Foods beets. I'm not wasting them!)

The end result:

I can't wait to see the look on people's faces when they see these! How perfect to serve these at a wedding? They're going to be sweet and tangy and gorgeous. I'm very excited about these in so many ways! I'd really like to thank my helpers on this project. I could not have done this batch of beets without you guys!!

So yeah, the beets took all night. I went to bed about 1:00 a.m., and didn't get to the garlic scapes. But they were quick and easy and I did them the next day.... I'll post that blog later this weekend. In the meantime, what do you guys think? Pretty neat, huh?

Pickles are the new Cupcakes!

So much news to share! First, a much delayed update on the State Fair results! As some of you know, I entered my four "best" pickles in the State Fair competition: Watermelon Rind, Beets, Peaches, and (my secret weapon) Wasabeans. I was so nervous and excited when I went to the fair one evening, hoping that they had the winning pickles on display. (I had lucked into a $10 season pass on Facebook, and I used the heck out of that thing!)

So I walked into the Craft Hall, wandered past all the other crafts, the cakes, quilts, and antiques, and came to this:

The wall of pickles. Ok, there were jams and jellies there, too. And some relishes. But I was only interested in finding my pickles and seeing if any of them had ribbons. My nervous excitement was too much to bear! While looking over the pickles my fellow competitors submitted, I did get some really interesting ideas (pickled figs! I bet they go great with Manchego...) But then I found one of mine:

My peaches! With a ribbon!! Third place... I'll take that. I knew I hadn't packed my jars as tightly as I should have. I'd never canned peaches before, and when they were done, there was like 1/3 of the jar just pickle juice, no peaches.... But the flavor was the BOMB! (My secret: a split vanilla bean in the brine!) So I was very, very satisfied to take third state-wide for something I'd only just started doing that summer. This was maybe only my third round of flavor-tweaking.... Third place! I was over the moon! And looking around, I couldn't find the second or first place peaches... I later found out, they didn't award second or first place. So basically, my pickled peaches were the BEST. Yay! Then I found my beets. No ribbon. I wasn't too surprised. I had only made them about 6 weeks before the fair. I knew they were a little too new to be really good. My beets (I think they've now been named Killah Beets, by a very dear friend, and I like the name very much) are awesome, I know the recipe is good (though one batch this year was a bit clove-heavy) but I do know that the beets I submitted to the judges were a little new. If they were to taste them now, it would be a totally different experience. In fact, one of my most fabulous Whole Foods friends had her wife try my beets, and she loved them, and she doesn't even LIKE beets!! How's THAT for a ringing endorsement??

Then, I found my watermelon rinds. No ribbon! That one did disappoint me. I don't understand how they could not love my watermelon rinds. This was another category where they only awarded a third place ribbon. I'd really like to try some other people's pickled watermelon rinds for comparison, maybe get some other ideas. Whatever. I think mine are awesome.

So then I get to the biggest category of them all: Miscellaneous Pickles. Here's where the pickled figs were. The pickled okra and pickled asparagus. Someone had even entered pickled bananas! There were half a dozen third place ribbons, half a dozen seconds as well. And then I see one jar with a blue ribbon. One single entry in all of Miscellaneous Pickles has been given a blue First Place ribbon:

My Wasabeans. MY WASABEANS!! The only first place ribbon in all of Miscellaneous Pickles! In the entire state of Virginia! 2011 State Fair best pickles EVER (in class 7412 Any Other Pickles Not Listed)! That anyone should jump up and down and scream and shout (and cry a little) for their pickles winning in the state fair might be considered silly by some people, but I am not ashamed.

These were my goals for 2011: launch jillpickles.com, start tweaking my pickle recipes into delicious works of art, blog about it, enter them in the State Fair, win a blue ribbon. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

So where does the cupcake thing come in? The next part of that goal statement was "...and then in 2012 I'll start selling them!" Well that's a lot more complicated than it sounds. There are licenses and maybe permits, I need to be making them in a commercial kitchen, not in my apartment. I need to take Jill Pickles from a blog and hobby and turn it into a for real small business. I really believe that people will go crazy for my small batch, artisanal pickles made with love from local produce like they went crazy for cupcakes a couple of years ago. The wheels are in motion for me to actually do this. By summer, I really believe that people I don't know will be able to buy my pickles, and enjoy them, and want more, and that thought gives me chills! Those of you who have been so kind as to taste my pickles and give me feedback, and love and support... thank you. I could not have done this without you, and I will continue to rely on your palates as my dreams of new pickle varieties make it through the beta testing process... next up: spicy cauliflower and carrots, with smoked paprika... I can't stop thinking about it!

One thing to note: The Virginia House of Representatives will soon be voting on HB46, also known as "The Pickle Bill". This will enable home picklers to sell their products out of their homes and at farmers markets with labels that say "not for resale - made in an uninspected kitchen". It was supposed to come up for a vote tomorrow (January 23rd, 2012), but has been pushed back. If you're so inclined, you should call your Representative and encourage them to support HB46 when it does come up for a vote.

Thanks guys!! I'll keep you posted as I try new recipes, and as Jill Pickles becomes more than just a weekend hobby and gift-basket filler!