What else have I got to do today besides brew up some homemade pickles? Honestly, the "to do" list is a mile long, but freshly harvested produce moves quickly to the top of any list of tasks.
Since I'm out of dill, and so are all the local stores, today's recipe called for a sweet flavor. I decided to use the Good Eats sweet pickle (refrigerator) recipe. You will find the show's transcript here (recipe starts at Scene 6), and you can watch the recipe portion of the episode on YouTube here.
The cucumber plants are growing nicely, and twice now I've been able to harvest nearly 2 pounds of cucumbers. And there are lots more little cucumbers growing!
This morning's harvest was a variety of sizes, and well, shapes.
Once I had the little fruits picked, it was time to wash them up under cold water and really give them a good scrubbing. Scrubbing removes the little prickly things on the skin, and really works off any dirt or other foreign particles that might be on the skin. (By the way, I keep my veggie scrubber nice and clean by running it through the dishwasher after using it.)
After their scrubbing, they are nice and glossy and no longer have their dull finish.
There is a variety of ways you can prepare the cucumbers for pickling. This morning, I chose to do simple coin slices.
Once sliced, I soak the cucumbers in an ice and salt water bath. We don't like the flavor of our tap water, so I used bottled water for this process. Today's batch fit into a serving bowl, so I popped it into the fridge for 2-3 hours. Putting the bowl in the fridge while they soak really minimizes the number of times I need to add ice to the water and really chills the cucumbers.
A few hours later, I sterilized my jars, lids and rings and got ready for the canning process.
I put the brine mixture on the stove to cook. This recipe calls for bringing the brine ingredients to a boil, and then letting them simmer for four minutes. I used bottled water for the brine water too, since we don't like the flavor of our tap water.
Once the jars were ready, I carefully filled each jar with the sliced cucumbers and some sweet onion slices.
I didn't quite have enough cucumbers to completely fill all four jars, so I topped them off with a few more slices of onion.
I added the brine to the jars, wiped off the rims of the jars, and added the lids and rings. This recipe is a refrigerator recipe, so it doesn't have to be hot water processed once the jars are lidded. After the jars cool to room temperature, I'll put them in the fridge for keeping.
Mmmm, delish!
