Pickled Beet Deviled Easter Eggs

Old family recipe again. We raised beets in the garden, pickled them & canned to eat all winter, thus the recipe. I'm off on recipes but I'm making these and thought you might want to try them and start a tradition for Easter at your house. Hurry to the grocery store TODAY so the beets have at least two days to set in pickling mixture. Buy (3) 15oz. cans sliced beets at about 40 cents a can compared to pickled beets 1 can for $1.69? Drain off juice but save, you might need some of it. Heat in large pan TODAY:
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 - 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
Stir while heating over medium heat. When starts to boil add the canned, drained, sliced beets to the sugar/vinegar mixture. Let set till cool. All the slices of beets should be covered with the mixture. If not, add a little of the liquid from the canned beets. Put in refrigerator. After a day or two take out some beets and eat with your meal. Good aren't they? Do not waste any of the liquid they are in. Saturday, day before Easter (like you don't have anything else to do) boil 6 eggs till hard about 15 minutes. Run under cold water and peel. Drain enough beet juice off the beets to cover the eggs in a container & refrigerate the rest of the day and night. This will dye the white of the egg purple about half way through. (Longer will start to dye your yellow and when you fix them the yellow will look off colored). Won't hurt them, just not quite as pretty. Easter morning take the eggs out of the beet juice & run water over them to get excess juice off them. Cut the eggs in half lengthwise and lay purple egg whites on a paper towel so purple doesn't bleed on other things. Take out the yellows and crush with fork, pastry blender or whatever add: 1 tsp. vinegar, sugar, butter, 1/2 tsp. salt & 1/4 tsp. black pepper, 1-1/2 Tab. (maybe 2) Miracle Whip & a drop or two of yellow mustard. Mix together. NOW for the (not my side of the family) 1 Tab. pickle relish, drained. Mix all together. Fill the hole of the purple/white egg halves and you have very tasty and pretty deviled eggs to serve for Easter as well as some good pickled beets. Happy Easter Jeanette

Multi Grain Bars

Friends we met in our travels Toni & Ted from Washington State brought me these plus recipe and it is the most moist healthy breakfast bar or just cookie bar. Good eating any time. It's made with Quaker Multi Grain (hot cereal) like Quaker Oatmeal in a round container, also. I've had a hard time finding it but found it last week at Hy Vee. It has Rye,Barley,Oats, & Wheat. A perfect blend of 100% Natural.
Combine:
1 - 1/2 cups of uncooked Multi grain
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Beat together:
1 cup applesauce
1 cup raisins (Dried Cherries are even better)
1/2 cup golden brown sugar
1/4 cup veg. oil (I used olive oil)
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine all.
Bake in a 9"x9" baking dish at 350 degrees 30 minutes or when toothpick comes out clean.
This will cut into 16 nice size bars after you cool. They freeze well also.

I have been stocking up on apples while they are so cheap. I didn't have applesauce this time so I peeled and grated enough apple to cook on low in a pan with lid on the stove till soft and used that with a little sweetener in it and it was delicious.

Raisin Orange Sauce for your Easter Ham

My mother made this sauce for eating on our slice of ham at Easter. I still love it. I know everyone thinks they have to have Cherry sauce on ham but I really think this enhances the flavor of the ham where cherries overpower & deminish the flavor of the ham. You might want to try it.

Mix in a saucepan:
1 cup sugar
2 Tab. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tab. flour

Stir in:
1- 1/4 cup cup orange juice
1/4 cup. lemon juice
1/2 cup water
Cook over low heat, stirring until it boils. Boil 3 minutes.
Remove from heat and mix in:
1 Tab. butter
1 tsp. each of orange & lemon rind, grated
1/2 cup raisins.
Right now it will be a little thin in texture but let it set and cool awhile and it will thicken.
A bite of ham overed with this is just plain good eating!! I think.

Hint: I don't go buy a orange and lemon each time I make something that calls for rind. When I do buy an orange & lemon when they are on a good sale. I grate all the outside rind off at that time and freeze each in a little marked snack bag and put each in one freezer bag. When I need some rind I just get it out of the freezer and use what I need and put the rest back. Keeps a long time and freezing doesn't hurt it in your recipe. You can still eat your orange and make lemonaide . Jeanette