Pickled Beets

I don't know what it is about this time of year that makes me want to pickle stuff my, only guess is that it has something to do with my Swedish roots... "Oy Leena we are in for a long cold winter don't-cha- know, we better preserve everything that we can before the first frost."  I have never been much for canning, honestly it scares me, but I do like to preserve or pickle somethings.  One of my favorite is salmon, I made Gravlax recently (now you know what kind of wild weekend I can have).

This post is about Pickled Beets though, I was going to use Golden Beets they were beautiful, but life came up and I used them for something else... so back to the store I went.  This recipe is adapted from  Epicurious

1/2 cup cider or white vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
a good pinch of  freshly ground pepper
1/2 of a bulb of Fennel sliced thin
Three medium sized beets sliced about 1/4 inch thick

Cook beets in water until they are soft then set aside.  While they cool heat the bring the first 5 ingredients to a boil put the sliced fennel into a storage container then the beets then cover with the hot liquid.  Refrigerate overnight.  These are really wonderful, they have the pickled flavor that I like so much but still hold onto the earthy goodness that fresh beet have.  They are suposed to keep for at least a couple of weeks but these are going to be gone long before that.