Saving the Harvest: Raspberry Beets - Homemade Raspberry Vinegar

Fancy Beets sautéed in butter and dressed with raspberry vinegar.

This dish is dinner party worthy.  It is a little more trouble than just roasting beets.  A friend in Boston who is an excellent cook made it for us once.  She is an attorney who also studied at the Sorbonne and lived in Paris.  It was one of those dinners that you keep remembering after you’ve left.  She said that the recipe was from Julia Child but I could never find it. You shred fresh beets (an easy task if you have a food processor).   Then they are sautéed with butter and finally dressed with raspberry vinegar. 

 

sliced raspberry beets with currents

If you are too lazy to get out the food processor and clean it afterwards (like me) or don’t have one, you can slice the beets and proceed with the recipe.  I also once added currants (see pictures).  There is a picture of the shredded beets at the end of this post.  I used beets from our farmer’s market.  Keep them in a cool dark place to use for weeks.

sliced golden raspberry beets with red currents

Ingredients:

-        1 1b of uncooked organic fresh beets - peeled

-        4 tb of organic butter ( I use salted butter) or 3 tb butter plus 1 tb org. olive oil

-        Sea salt to taste

-        ¼ cup homemade organic raspberry vinegar

Shred the beets (easy in a food processor).  Melt the butter (and add the oil) in a flat (fry) pan and then add the beets, salt them and sauté them over medium heat until tender.   Turn off the heat and add the raspberry vinegar to the beets and stir well.  Taste to make sure they are salty enough. 

Organic butter is available in bulk at Costco – it keeps well in the freezer.  If you would like to use less fat, then steam the beets by cooking with a few tablespoons of water (and maybe 1 tablespoon of butter).  Sauté the beets in a little butter for a few minutes then add the water and put a lid over the pan to steam them.  

 

Shredded raspberry beets.  Worth the extra effort!

Raspberry Vinegar:

We always have ever bearing raspberries.  Even if you don’t have much sun, you can plant them in your yard and you can have fresh raspberries from August to early November or the first frost.  For raspberry vinegar I just put some organic vinegar in a pan and heat it to a boil, turn it off, put some raspberries in (as many as you can spare), smash them and add a little organic sugar (we buy this in bulk at Costco).  Organic white vinegar (available at Whole Foods) is also very inexpensive and can be used for fruit vinegars of all kinds. 

Ingredients:

-        1 cup organic vinegar (white or apple cider are good choices)

-        ¼ to ½ cup organic raspberries (frozen organic raspberries are easy to find and work well)

-        1 tablespoon organic sugar or honey

Cooking

Heat the vinegar and sugar to a boil.  Turn off the heat and poor in the raspberries.  If you are using frozen raspberries, then do not turn off the stove, but cook  for a minute or so until thawed. Smash the berries into the vinegar with a potato masher or fork.  You can strain it if you like (sometimes I just use it with the pieces intact).  Refrigerate the vinegar when not using it.  If you are giving the vinegar as a gift, filter the raspberry pieces out and then reserve a few intact raspberries to add after bottling.  AGAIN – KEEP REFRIGERATED.

The Monarch Project @ Mercer Road Farm

Notes on Starting a Butterfly Garden – The Monarch Project @ Mercer Road Farm

Just as the bees are in decline, other pollinators – the butterflies (especially Monarchs) are also rapidly disappearing.  This is thought to be from a combination of the eradication of the monarch caterpillar’s primary food source (milkweed) and other farming practices.  Large swaths of the U.S. are planted with plants that are genetically modified (GMO) to withstand herbicides.  These herbicides like Roundup (containing glyphosate) kill milkweed. By the way… glyphosate is also a probable carcinogen (cause of cancer).  Millions (some estimate billions) of monarchs have vanished and their population has been reduced by over 96 percent in recent years.

 

Rose Milkweed

Yellow Coneflower - Ratibita Pinnata

We decided to build a series of butterfly gardens on our blueberry farm.  We do not use any chemicals on the farm, so we thought that it would be a nice safe haven for the monarchs to rest and reproduce.  I had planted a small test garden last year (cheated and used many plants that had already been started – from Prairie Moon).  We have poor clay soil and it is very difficult to grow anything.    I also had planted purple prairie clover, yellow clover, brown eyed susan, Bush's coneflower, culver's root and red monarda (bee balm - I think that the deer ate this). That garden turned out really well – pictured above. 

August - disappointing growth of the milkweed that were planted from seed.  However the monarch caterpillars LOVED the plants!!!!!!!

A third butterfly garden -- slow milkweed growth but the monarch caterpillars loved it anyway.

I had also bought a large number of wildflower and milkweed seeds for other planned gardens.  We got caught by the early snow and could not clear and plow the areas before winter started and so did not get to put the seeds down in late fall.  I put the milkweed seeds in potting soil and stored them in a refrigerator so that I could plant them in the spring.  I did plant most of the milkweed and some of the wildflower seeds.  I was extremely disappointed in the slow start and slow growth of the milkweed plants (see pictures above).  However, I am still hoping that they will come back in the spring.  I will let you know. 

Even though I was disappointed in the plants the butterflies must have loved them.  I went down to hand weed the crabgrass out of one garden and was surprised in late August to find a caterpillar almost every foot or so.  !!!!!!!! Very happy !!!!!!!!  I only found a few chrysalis, but I did have one side of each garden surrounded by large a large unmowed field, so I hope that this is where they built the chrysalis.  I did see many large monarch butterflies in the ensuing weeks.

 

Chrysalis

Here are some notes and observations:

1.  You must choose an area that you will not mow (at least not after early spring).  You might have to weed by hand – at least make sure that no trees are growing. 

2.  Sometimes the caterpillars go “off the reservation” therefore be careful not to mow them or step on them.  I was mowing next to the butterfly garden earlier in the summer.  After seeing the caterpillars around the garden, I have decided this year to surround the gardens with plants that crowd out weeds/grass and do not need mowing.  I will try variegated mint and regular mint as well as Echinacea.  I hope that the caterpillars aren’t bothered by the mint.  I will report back on this. Butterflies seem to LOVE Echinacea and it grows anywhere for me.

3.  If at all possible, plant the milkweed in the fall (instructions can be found at Prairie Moon Farm website and other places).  Otherwise you must follow the instructions for chilling them before planting.  Note that I do not agree with the use of “nontoxic” chemicals to kill weeds and prepare the bed. 

4.  Plant wildflowers and let wild sedge and other nice wild plants grow with the milkweed.  Try to plant with a density that will allow the wildflower and milkweed to crowd out other plants.  

5.  Don’t step in the garden when you see caterpillars.  They may be everywhere and are difficult to see sometimes.  When the butterflies emerge, do not handle them.  They need time to hang upside down to inflate their wings.

6.  The monarch caterpillar can only feed on milkweed but the butterfly will feed on nectar from many kinds of flowers.  Try to keep as many native wildflowers around as you can manage.

7.  Note that most wildflowers do not bloom the first year.  It may take a few years before the garden looks like a wildflower garden.

Here is a list of the seeds that were ordered last year and a picture of the wildflowers and milkweed plants.