Quiet Rage has been on her great grandmother Olsen's farm food journey. Great Gramma Olsen lived in Morris, Minnesota where her family settled the land back in the 1860's. They were the iconic prairie pioneer homesteaders. To add to the iconic story of the prairie lifestyle, my great grandfather used to milk cows in the morning and then deliver the mail using a team of horses. This was Minnesota 100+ years ago. There was no heated mail truck. There was no heated barn. There was no snow plough to clear the roads. There was no running to the grocery store. There was no running water. There was no electricity.
Where I'm going with this is that my great grandmother Olsen was an excellent cook and baker. My father's sisters were wonderful stewardesses of keeping Gramma Olsen's recipes in tact. They put together a little cook book for us to keep the recipes in the family. My favorite is Gramma Olsen's sugar cookies. The ingredients are so simple one would think that such a simple recipe would be bland. Nope. Gramma Olsen's sugar cookies are legendary.
The other recipe is Gramma Olsen's pickled beets. For whatever reason, that recipe always intimidated me. I finally decided to try it. There were some beets left in our garden that needed to get pulled up before it got too cold and wet. I called my aunt (yes, two of my dad's three sisters still live - we are too spicy to just grow old and lie down) and asked her to describe Gramma Olsen's process of pickling and canning beets.
Gramma Olsen's pickled beet recipe and method did not disappoint. I now have a stash of delicious pickled beets that are so good they can be eaten plain right out of the jar like candy (but SUPER healthy). Again, true to Gramma Olsen's ingredients, they are simple and pure. Maybe the magic is in the few and simple ingredients. I'm thinking about entering Gramma's beet recipe in the Sonoma County Fair. .... and perhaps her sugar cookies.
