Beets Me!

Have you ever wondered what 550 pounds of beets looks like?  No?  Why not?  

  Here it is, piled up in the produce sink (yes, I have a sink in my kitchen that is JUST for produce; doesn't everyone?), waiting to be peeled, sliced and made into Pickled Beets & Strawberries.  We need 6900 jars, 16 ounces each.  We started actually pickling them a week ago, but only made enough for the gift shop last week.  This week, we're starting on the 6900 jars.  Day before yesterday, we made 50.  Yesterday, we made 219.  Today, we made 386.  655:  Only 6245 left.  No problem!  

  

One thing we have discovered is that this is nothing like pickling okra.  Some things are better:  no slime.  Some things are not:  many, many steps to pickled beet bliss.  Here, Dustin is mixing four bags--100 pounds--of sliced beets in the brine.  Remember the consomme that Melanie made for two weeks?  It's in there!  Along with vinegar, spices, water, sugar and salt.  See all those strawberries?  Melanie is cutting them all into chunks tonight while I get ready for bed.

Here are Dustin and Melanie with Shannon, our recruit from the Main House restaurant, hard at work, with the water bath steaming between them and me.  We have two other people from the Barn restaurant helping this coming week, and we are determined to knock this project out in the next 2 1/2 weeks.  I know we can do it!  Wish us luck!

p.s.  I'll say it:  I hate the way Blogger posts photos!  Words get misaligned against the pictures; downloading takes forever and sometimes, they simply disappear, for no obvious reason!  It's frustrating!  If there was a place to complain about it to them, I'd do it!  I just can't figure out how!