Pickled Eggs and Red Beets from Cooks.com

Oh yea!

Last week, New Years Day actually, I made a half-gallon canning jar worth of pickled eggs and beets with onions.  Yes, to this recipe below I added slices of raw onion. 

Pickled eggs are not everyone’s cup of tea. I learned I liked them only a few years ago. They are a good way to preserve boiled eggs so you can boil a lot at one time and then eat them over a few weeks' time. I refrigerate mine. Some people say you don't need to. I prefer to refrigerate anyway or at least place jar in a cold room.

What is a "cold room" exactly?  When I was growing up, my grandmother had one bedroom where she kept foods that would benefit from being kept cooler, but would not fit in the refrigerator.  Shocking as this may seem to the city folk and the young'uns, refrigeration is a luxury that was not available to everyone even only 50 years ago...

I decided to make pickled eggs and here we are…

I doubled this recipe basically – save for the two boiled eggs that did not peel well.

Problem?  I cannot find which recipe I used. Below are the items I used, but no clue of the amounts. So, I guess I do not have to worry about making this one again unless I run across it on the Internets!

16 Hard Boiled Eggs

2 pints cider vinegar
Salt

Sugar

Cloves

Bay leaves
The juice from large can red beets

I boiled all my eggs. There are things one needs to know when boiling eggs in a way that will allow them to be peeled more easily.

• Choose older eggs – still good but not straight from the hen fresh
• Place eggs in enough cold water in a pot that they are covered
• Bring eggs to a light boil, place a lid on the pot and turn the eye off. Let sit 20 minutes
• Pour off the water, crack each egg and run cold water over them
• Don’t burn yourself

Boil all other (non-egg) ingredients for 10 minutes (full boil). I poured over the hard boiled eggs, the added onions and red beets in a half gallon canning Mason jar and tightened down the two part lid.

Refrigerate. Lightly shake jar every few minutes to evenly coat all the eggs.

Now, lesson learned here?

First, blanch or cook the onions before pickling. The onions in my jar have continued to mature. They are chewy and almost dry. Not unlike the exterior dryer layers we typically peel off.

Second, not all recipes work out for the best.  This one is too bland for me.

For a starter recipe, it works. For anyone not used to pickled eggs – it is mild enough. 

I will try another one