Beet Jelly

[Devyn-Leann]

6 cups beet juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 pkgs. pectin
8 cups sugar
2 small boxes rasberry jello

Scrub raw beets extra well. Leave 1 1/2 - 2 inches of stem above beet. Cover with water and boil until tender. Drain off water and retain. Let juice set several hours and use only top half of juice. Bring 6 cups of beet juice, lemon juice, and pectin to hard boil. Mix jello with sugar and add all at once to boiling mixture. Boil 7 minutes, skim, and pour into sterilized jars. Seal.

Yield 4 1/2 pts


I know it sounds absolutely disgusting, but it's delicious!!!!!

[Diane Amberg]

How many beets did you start with? Can I just make it without the beet juice?   (Actually I do like beets.)

[Jo McDonald]

This is soooo unreal.  I was cooking beets for supper tonight that Fred gathered from our garden -- and as I was scrubbing them clean, I was telling him about our deceased friends from Aransas Pass, Texas -- when the beets came to the farmer's market in the late fall, Lou would always call me and say "Jodi !!!  there are fresh beets at the market in Rockport -- and I am going to get some to make jelly.  Do you want any?"  Well, needless to say, I LOVE fresh beets, but had never made beet jelly.  So- I had no idea how to make it, and NOW --- LOOKEE HERE, A RECIPE, from a youngster yet.
Thanks, sweet girl -- this is nice to have.

[flo]

hey, make jelly out of the juice, pickle the beets AND tops, no waste.  I've never had beet jelly, but wow, beet pickles, love 'em.  My grandma Edwards always added a few 3-4" tops and they were nice, crisp and just as good as the beets almost.

[Mom70x7]

And I love hard-boiled eggs soaked in the beet pickle juice.
Beautiful color and delicious pickled eggs.

[sixdogsmom]

You can lead Ted anywhere with a jar of pickled beets. He adores them! I wish I had planted some this spring; I bought beets yesterday, and they are 62cents per can. Pickled beets aren't hard to can either, but I had never heard of including the tops, Flo.

[flo]

  That may have just been my grandma.  She was a "waste not, want not" kind of person.  Probably the only one that skinned and fried the chicken feet, too. YUCK - I liked the pickled beet tops, but don't know about the chicken feet.  I never even tried them.

[Jo McDonald]

Fried chicken feet are GOOD, Flo.  I cooked them all the time, when I had fresh fryers and dressed them myself. 
***I never could figure out why it was called "Dressing Chickens" , when you scalded them and took off all of their feathers" 
              and all you had was a NAKED chicken.
  I love pickled beets - but had never heard of the tops being pickled too.  Fred's Mother could make something out of anything, but
she never used the beet tops for anything.

[sixdogsmom]

My grandmother loved the feet and the heads! Yuk! I like the innards though, livers and gizzards fried safely inside the back and the ribs so they don't get too hard. Yum! A smell from the fourth of July morning, with a special treat of a liver fresh from the frying pan! This after waking the folks with a little symphony of poppers under a tin can outside their bedroom window! Picnic in the cousins basement; it was cool down there, and later sparklers on the lawn along with home made ice cream. Happy Birthday America!!

[Dee Gee]

My grandmother cleaned and cooked the chicken feet and head, the summer I spend with them is the only time I got to eat the head and as I remember they were not too bad.  My mother cooked the feet when we raised our own chickens when us kids was growing up and they are good eating.