Pickle Your Fancy

3

August 7, 2013 by drandmrso

I made pickles, and you can too. This is especially helpful if you have a gigantic cucumber plant overtaking your garden. The steps are simple enough.

1. Gather up some cukes. These are a combination of CSA and home garden varieties:

This little cucumber when to market, this little cucumber stayed home…

2. Peel. Preferably with a really cute veggie peeler that looks like a gnome.

We call him Chippy.

Good job, Chippy!

3. Chop, chop, chop (thinly). If your knife skills are better than mine this will not take you 20 minutes.

4. Put cucumber slices in a bowl. My bowl has measurements (holla!) so the rest of the ingredients are based on the fact that I ended up with about 6 cups of chopped cucumber. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and mix it all up in there. Let stand for an hour.

There are 4 cups in a quart. And now you know.

5. After that hour, leave the brine that has started to form. Add 1/2 cup of white sugar (more if you prefer sweet pickles…but really, ew) and 1 cup of cider vinegar, plus a dash of pickling spices.

So much brine, so little time.

This one made the cut during my spice purge.

6. Stir it all up, cover, and put in the fridge. Start chomping away! Pickles will keep in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

Close-up yum.

I know what you’re thinking: how on earth am I going to eat 6 cups of pickles in 2 weeks? First, you are very likely underestimating my love of all things pickled. Second, I plan to stealthily distribute little jars to more-or-less unsuspecting recipients (family, my CSA partner, anyone that invites me over in the next two weeks, etc.). So tell me: what kind of delicious concoctions are you mixing up these days and, potentially more important, how do you pawn them off?

Update: I realized after pickling and even after writing this post that this completed #74 on my list of 101 Things. Sweet!