There is a local Middleastern place with this awesome beet salad where they put dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) atop it. The salad is shredded beets with some vinegary dressing and ground pistachios sprinkled on it! Oh, and if you have a good raw dolmas recipe, that'd be cool. I wonder if the grape leaves are raw...

I can pickle beets in my fermenting jar, they are very wonderful, savory, tasty, tart, earthy, yum!
I suppose you could shred or thinly slice beets and marinate them in oil and lemon to "cook" and season them, add any spices you like.
Beets are nice with citrus, oranges in particular. I think the combo of beet and pomegranite is interesting too. Beets and pomegranite over spinach salad with an orange dressing might be nice.

Coco: Thanks...I don't think I have fermented beets yet and I have definitely been thinking about it. The idea of putting it over spinach sounds great too!

hey coco

can u divulge your recipe method of fermenting beets

i've never fermented beets

do u just cut it up ( how do u cut it up)

and just put it in a jar with fresh squeezed orange juice?

what a bout lemon juice or garlic

or sea salt

and also
for how long do u put it in the jar?

I have a fantastic low-tech fermenting jar called the perfect pickler which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to make pickles or kimchi etc. The contraption came with recipes and the site sends me updates every now and then with more info, recipes etc. Very very cool thing for about 25$

Coco: I have never had any trouble with fermenting veggies...EXCEPT pickles! They say that you must put an oak leaf or some other type of leaf that has tannins on it and helps keep the cukes from getting soggy and spoiling. I have made pickles a couple of times but they got pretty mushy. My boyfriend liked them, though LOL

La Veronique: Do you have a 2-quart sprouting jar (glass)? I take one of those, add my veggies (in your case, sliced beets), 2-4 Tbsp. sea salt in distilled or otherwise purified water. Cover to keep out fruit flies, but let air get in (via mesh screen top or cotton towel which breathes). It'll be done within a few days and then you can store in fridge. It ferments quicker in the summer, of course.

That's bacteria making your pickles soft. Fermenting in an open jar lets things in that you don't neccessarily want in there. It's ok to eat small amounts of bad bacteria along with the good (like Hippocrates found in rejuvelac after testing it several times) but it's not great for anyone with digestive or other health issues. I'm really careful about fermenting, I make sure everything is sterile and use the release valve that doesn't let anything in at all.

Coco: I thought it was because the pickles have soft centers. They are very perishable. Interesting: I have had a hard time keeping cukes from spoiling in general. They go bad really quickly and you have to keep them outside. You cannot refrigerate them (at least not in bags) and I have found that they get soft spots quickly. Well, when I started buying them from the farmer's market, I was floored at how long they lasted just sitting on the counter! So I am guessing that the ones in the store are already a bit old.

I don't know, I don't usually have trouble with cukes. They don't last for more than 4 days or so but they are rather soft and watery. When I ferment them I get crisp pickles. I don't use english cukes, they don't pickle well, and not field cukes either. I use the regular pickling cukes which seem to only be available in the summer. My dad was a stickler about not putting fingers into the pickle jar too (regular vinegar pickles), he insisted that the bacteria from your fingers would ruin a jar of crisp pickles and make them all go soft.
What I make most with the jar are caulflower and carrots. OMG, are they ever delish.

I LOVE pickled green beans... my favorite pickle ever... especially with a little hint of garlic and jalepeno in the pickling solution...mmmmmmm

Hi

Orange and Beet Salad Recipe
Print Options

Ingredients

1 bunch of beets, leaves removed (save them for beet greens!) - about 4 or 5 medium sized
2 large navel oranges, peels cut off with a small small knife and sliced
1 bunch of arugula leaves, cleaned, and any thick stems removed
Several thin slices of red onion
optional 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

dressing
In a small jar, mix the following ingredients. The mustard is there to act primarily as an emulsifier.
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dried mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
Method

1 Cook the beets with their peel on. I prefer the boiling method because it's more efficient - cover the beets with water, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes or until beets can easily be pierced through with a fork. Alternatively you can wrap the beets in aluminum foil and bake them in the oven at 400°F for an hour or until done. After cooking, allow the beets to come to room temperature and remove their peels. Slice or quarter them. If you have time, place them in a small bowl and marinate them in half of the oil and vinegar dressing, ingredients listed above.

2 Compose individual salad plates with arugula, a few slices of orange, a few beets, a few slices of red onion and a few chopped walnuts. If you want some added color, gently add a few slices of the orange to the beet juice from your bowl of beets. Let the oranges absorb the beet color and use in your salad. Sprinkle dressing over the individual salads.

Thanks

Thanks, Nancy! Maybe to keep things raw, I could just not cook the beets (perhaps shred them or slice paper-thin?). I am very intrigued by the orange-beet-arugula combo!

Yes, orange beet arugula walnut sounds great! Though I don't know why people insist on cooking beets all the time, they are far superior raw IMO. Very juicy and sweet and yum.

I'm about to make some pickles today if I can find the recipe book, I don't know where I put it. Cabbage, carrot etc this time but beets are next on the agenda. I can't wait! Beets keep longer than cabbage or I'd do them first.

I thought you just put salt and purified water for fermenting, unless you plan to soak them in raw vinegar? I saw a recipe where they just sliced cukes and marinated them in lemon juice or raw vinegar...can't remember which. Looked like a nice alternative when you just want something raw and sour but don't want to wait almost a week.

There's a ratio of salt to water and measurements etc. Plus some harder veg have to be coupled with a certain amount of something that is easier to ferment or it just won't get started. I just guessed this time, wish me luck!

I just made sauerkraut and tried to cut the salt in half and I think it screwed it up a bit. I let it sit for five days and we had some humid ones, too. Usually it'll sour up in a couple of days or so but even after five days it was just slightly sour.

Hmm, wonder what's up. I think using less salt is supposed to work best if you add some of the kraut juice from your last batch.

I used cabbage this time too, I pounded it in a bowl first (never done that before) hoping that even if I didn't put in enough salt it would be softened enough to get fermenty. Boy, I hope so!
The beets I'm going to grate or julienne to give them a better chance.

Usually I just coarsely chopped up the cabbage and this time I grated it in the food processor. I also added some beets. I was disappointed with the outcome but c'est la vie...

Dang it, that's not fun.
My jar is bubbling away already so fermentation's on the go. Hope it turns out.
I included some green beans in honour of our hungry little Curator, hee hee.

O M.G!!!
This jar of ferments is AMAZING!!! Oh, it's so tasty and good! I LOVE that Perfect Pickler jar, Yum Yum Yum!

It's cabbage, celery, carrots, green beans, garlic and caraway seeds. I wanted to put in green onions but we were out so next time, I think those would be so tasty.
I opened it tonight to see if it was finished and it smelled so delicious I just had to try some right away. Not very salty at all, fizzy and tart and crisp but tender and oooohhhhhyyyuuuuummmmm it made me feel so terrific when I was eating it, I could feel how healthy it was for my body. Oh man.

I'll transfer to another jar and set it back up with the beets tomorrow. Oh man, I can barely wait the four days before I can try those too. Yummy yummy pickles, mm mm good!

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, sooo, what do you think of the green beans? ^_^

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

I think I could eat this stuff for breakfast today! But I won't.
lunch though, I'm all over it.
I'll do a small jar or green beans later on. These have to be stored in the fridge and I do eat ferments sparingly so I don't have the room to cram the whole icebox full of jars or pickled stuff! Or I would. I love fermenting SO much! Talk about living foods...

I forgot, Coco, do you need to add salt with that contraption? How many oz. does it hold? I remember you saying it was $25. I think it'd be worth it for making pickles (which I love). If you don't need anything besides water and salt for the pickles, I would consider buying one of them because I have never had crisp pickles...

It's a really big mason jar, 2 liters I think. Yup, salt, just salt and water. It's amazing, really really incredible. The veg I used are still all crisp, I even got a recipe from their site recently for pickled lettuce that apparently stays fairly crisp too. I might try it with some other greens, kale maybe. I can use the lid with the valve on any size mason jar with a wide mouth so I don't have to always be making 2 lt of everything. And I can use a regular jar lid to store them in the fridge and switch the pickling top to a new jar to make something else.
Best darn 25 bucks I ever spent on a kitchen gadget!

I am sold. I just love garlicky pickles but they are all pasteurized. Even this brand that Whole Food's sells in the refridgerated section and yet it's been heated. And very, very salty. I can't wait to get it!

Coco, I don't know if you're still on, but I thought you posted a kale recipe recently with nutritional yeast as one ingredient and I cannot find it. If you did, would you please direct me to it? Thanks.

Oops! It was one from therawmochaangel.blogspot.com. Looks delish so I am trying it tonight:[therawmochaangel.blogspot.com]

Scroll down a tad and you will see the recipe

I might have posted a link to the dehydrated kale "chips" recipe. Sunny raw blog is my fave site for recipes of all kinds, I probably got it there.

I just made a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge jar of jalapeno garlic pickles...a friend just gave me a big basket of little pickling cucumbers, and I am soooo looking forward to these...mmmmm...

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Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Fermented or actually pickled?

I've got the beets in, I grated them and used a bit too little salt I think. But I did put in some of the juice from the last batch to help it get started so fingers crossed it works!