Charisse’s Grandmother’s Beet’d Eggs

This is a country-style recipe, which means you can tweak it or use
different amounts.
Here is what my grandmother uses.

-Two large pickle jars with lids.
-about 6 fresh beets (hard to find but best to use) (get 8 beets if they
are smaller than a plum)
-1 dozen hard-boiled eggs
-at least 2 cups apple cider vinegar
-at least 2 cups sugar
-2-4 cinnamon sticks
Directions:
Cut stems off the fresh beets, leave about 1 inch of stem.
Boil the beets until soft (they are hard like potatoes, so it will take
at least 20 minutes)
Let beets cool, then peel them and cut off the extra stem part. Beets
will STAIN RED,
so be sure to wear old yucky clothes. You may also want to wear rubber
gloves, or walk
around with pink hands for a few days.

Warm up the vinegar, and add the sugar. Warm until the sugar melts.

Put the beets and eggs into the pickle jars, distributing evenly. Cram
the cinnamon sticks
in there. IMPORTANT: if you do not have cinnamon sticks, DO NOT
substitute cinnamon
powder, it will congeal some nasty stuff in there and be unpleasant.
Skip the cinnamon
if you don't have the sticks.

Fill the jars with the vinegar/sugar solution. If you need more vinegar
solution, warm some
more up and add an equal amount of sugar, then add. Let sit in the
refrigerator for 2 weeks.
Then, eat the eggs, they should be dark pink and sweet/vinegary. You may
re-use the beets
and water once (just add more eggs). I personally give away the eggs and
eat the beets!

I’ve been waiting to post this till I could try them, and I finally got to taste them today. It’s been hard to wait, because they looked like so much fun.

They were really easy to make. The only thing I will emphasis is wearing gloves when you deal with the beets. They sort of bleed as you peel them, and having the gloves on means you just don’t have to worry about it at all. The coolest thing is that when you first make them you can see these white patches where the boiled eggs are pressing up against the side of the jar, and then as they cool down, the eggs start turning red from the beet juice, so it looks like the eggs are receding into the beet-y darkness of the jar. It’s all so pretty.

So I finally got to try them today, and they are amazing! They are so good. The eggs dye down to the yolks, so they are very pretty, and they don’t have the harshness that regular pickled eggs do. They taste kind of creamy and a little sweet.

I have to say, I knew I was going to like them, but my husband is a much tougher customer. He does not like pickled eggs at all, so I figured I’d be eating all of these on my own, but he loved them too! He’s leaving all the beets for me though, which is fine all around. They are really good too, again, not as harsh as the pickled beets that you buy, which means that you can still taste the actual beet flavor.

These were a huge success. I think we are going to always have a jar of these around.

If you are reading this Charisse THANK YOU!!!!