While at work today we ended up having a short discussion about pickles. The usual comment is to “ASK MARTHA”. In this case Martha is me. It seems that the young ladies that I work with figure that I can do anything and know the answers to almost everything that is either kitchen, garden or do-it-yourself based. For a guy of my stature, 6’3” and around 280, I think that the title is a stretch but I will except it. It goes along with the other title of “Shrek Hands”.
I have tried to grown cucumbers for pickling in my limited garden space but my results are lest than stellar. I don’t know if it is tied to the decrease of bees to pollinate the flowers or if it my lack-luster and carefree approach to gardening. Either way, I ended up at the local produce market today and bought a few pounds of nice small French cucumbers (about 5 to 6 inches long).
The rest of my shopping list included white vinegar, ginger root, dill, garlic bulbs and pickling spices. After a quick search on the Internet I came up with at least a half dozen recipes for basic dill pickles. As my usual approach to cooking is , get the basics and then modify them to my own needs.
Some of the pointers that I found very useful and thought I would incorporate were the use of nickel size slices of ginger root, slightly crushed whole gloves of garlic, soaking the cucumbers in an ice-water bath and slicing the cukes into spears to speed the process along. With my finished product in mind I began the process.
I decided to work on a small scale and only put up two quarts of pickles. I placed my jars in a large pot of boiling water to sterilize them. In the bottom of each jar I put in two nickel sized slices of ginger, two crushed cloves of garlic and a couple sprigs of dill. I quartered my cukes and then packed the jars tightly and then topped then off with a couple more slices of ginger, crushed garlic cloves and another sprig or two of dill. I brought 2 cups of white distilled vinegar to a boil along with 2 to 3 tablespoons of pre-packaged pickling spices. I ladled this into the jars until they were filled. A skewer came in handy to get any air bubbles out of the jar and then I put the jars in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes before sealing the jar lids tightly.
I did have to add a little of the boiling water to top off the jars, 2 cups of vinegar was just a little shy of filling up the jars. I made sure to get a good portion of the boiled pickling spices in each jar and then toped each jar with a nice pinch of course salt.
I have a problem with being patient and that is the main reason I decided to go with the spears rather than the whole cucumber. It seems that you can get pickles ready to eat in a few days rather than a week or so if you use the whole cucumber. It was also easier to fit them in the jar when they were cut into spears. I also gleaned from the internet that the flower end of the cukes should be sliced off to keep your pickles from having problems with the enzymes that may or may not be present.
Well, I have two jars of pickles put up and I have to say that after being in the jars for less than and hour they are actually looking like pickles. The color has changed from a bright shiny green to more of a muted green and I just know it is going to be hard to wait a day or two to try my pickles.
One last note on the dill pickles is that once they reach the flavor and texture that pleases you then you need to refrigerate them.
I did end up with a few cukes left over and since Ron (my partner) does have a taste for old-fashioned bread and butter pickles I thought I would try to make some for him as well.
This time I sliced the cucumbers into coin shapes (you just have to love a food processor for this step). I also sliced a large white onion. I mixed the cucumber and onion together in a large bowl. On the stove I incorporated 2 cups of distilled white vinegar, 2 cup white granulated sugar, ¼ cup of coarse salt and about 3 tablespoons of pickling spices. I brought this to a boil and then when everything was dissolved I poured it over the cucumber and onion mix. This was sealed in a cover plastic container (I only had so many jars) and then placed in the refrigerator.
I have to admit that it only took about an hour before the bread and butter pickles had the taste I remember as a child and Ron gave them a thumbs up as well.
I am think that I will be coming up with my own pickling spice mix though. The one I bought has something that resembles crumbled bay leaves and the texture/feel in your mouth leave a lot to be improved upon.
I will leave an update on the response to the dill pickles in a few days. This was a spur of the moment follow-up to a random conversation at work today. When it is all said and done I probably spent more to make pickles than it would have cost to just but them at the store but then money wasn’t the issue. I may complain at work about the “MARTHA” handle but in reality I kind of like it. I like to be able to do anything that comes my way and I appreciate that fact that the people that know me really think that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.
Remember to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. It is also good to remember to share what you have, weather that be your knowledge, the produce from a garden or the fruits of your labors. The Golden rule often pays great dividends.
As always, comments are greatly appreciated.
I have been using my Envirocycler Composter for a few months. I have decided that to get the most out of my composting experiences I needed to get a second composter. Since it takes about 3 to weeks after putting food scraps in I either was running into storage issues. I was also over-filling the composter and making it hard to tumble. The hoarder in me is having a hard time letting the smallest scrap of vegetable scraps going into the garbage.
