Doing my job here representing the lowbrow end of the Recipes Forum. You know my "recipes" are along firehouse, hunting and fishing camp, poker game snacks, lines - and now I'm stooping to bar food. LOL
I've never been one to go to bars (probably a real good thing), but I was a steelworker for awhile when I was young. The crews I worked with liked to stop at a beer bar after work, even if that happened to be at 8 a.m. (eewww!). There was a gallon jar there with a handwritten sign: PICKLED EGGS 25 CENTS. I liked those, and would always have the bartender fish one out for me.
A couple of weeks ago I finished a quart jar of beet pickles that I made from our garden beets last year. I don't add sugar when I pickle beets (I think they're sweet enough already), and I don't add spices or anything except for one clove of garlic in the bottom of each jar. My basic brine is simple, in the ratio of 3 pints white vinegar, 1 pint apple cider vinegar, 3 pints water, and 7 tablespoons of Kosher salt.
It seemed like a shame to waste the good-tasting bright-colored brine that was left in that beet pickle jar, so I remembered those pickled eggs from long ago. I hard-boiled and peeled a bunch of eggs to fill the jar, and found there wasn't enough red brine to cover the eggs. I topped the jar off with 2/3 cider vinegar, 1/3 water, and put the jar in the refrigerator.
Two weeks later, those pickled eggs are GOOD. They taste quite a bit like deviled eggs, and I know our grandkids are going to get a kick out of how the egg whites turned bright red/purple - if I don't eat all of them up first, that is!
