Crafts, Cooking, Farmers Market Addictions: All Things Pickled

We love pickles in my family, all kinds. There is nothing better than homemade pickles and there's so many easy ways to make your own pickles. Also pretty much every kind of fruit and vegetable can be pickled or made into a relish. My favorite is dill or sour pickles and bread and butter pickles but I also like other vegetables pickled as well. This summer, both of my daughters and I have been making and experimenting with different pickles on our own and comparing notes. My oldest daughter, Tabitha, lives close by so we've been able to share jars back and forth which has been fun. I have several jars of refrigerator or quick pickles, cucumbers, radishes, and watermelon rind, plus a variety of fermented pickles and relishes. I've been experimenting with fermentation and have made garlic paste, onion and sweet pepper relish and real dill pickles. My daughter, Aubree, bought me a book and fermentation kit several years ago and I've been having fun with it and now she's caught the fermentation bug and has been making her own pickles as well. This year, I've also canned several jars of dill pickles. This post I'm going to mainly focus on quick or refrigerator pickles which are the easiest to do and do posts on canned pickles and fermented pickles and relishes in the future.

Radish quick pickles

Basically pickles are made with a brine of either vinegar, salt and water or just salt and water. Fermented pickles are made with a salt water brine put over cucumbers and allowed to set at room temperature for 7 to 10 days to ferment. Once fermented they are refrigerated for up to a year. Canned pickles are made with a vinegar, salt and water brine, heated and poured over cucumbers and processed in a water bath. They are then shelf stable for up to a year. Quick or refrigerator pickles is vinegar, salt and water added to vegetables and they are stored in the refrigerator and can be eaten within hours or a couple of days. You can also use leftover pickle juice to make quick pickles. If I have cucumbers left from what I've cut up for a salad or something, I just slice them up and add them to a jar of leftover pickle juice I keep in the refrigerator. I just keep adding cucumbers until the jar is full. They are quite tasty even by the next day. I also made some radish quick pickles, just cut up fresh radishes I bought from the farmer's market and put in a jar of leftover pickle juice and put them in the refrigerator and they are fantastic. I never throw out leftover pickle juice, there's so many uses for it. Like I said, it makes easy and tasty quick pickles and is a way to preserve fresh produce, it can be drunk for leg cramps, used in a vinaigrette dressing or for a sauce or added to any kind of salad like potato, egg or tuna for an extra zing. Here's Tabitha

recipe for Watermelon Rind Pickles:

Brine

1 cup of water
1 & 1/2 cups of (white) or (apple cider) vinegar can also use combination of different vinegars including balsamic or any kind of fancy vinegar
1 & 1/2 cups of white sugar (maybe 2 cups) can also substitute honey for part of sugar (1/2 and 1/2)
1 tsp. whole black peppercorns
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
3 tbsp. Kosher salt

juice from 1/2 a lemon
(You can also add 2 tsp. coriander seeds)

(Apple Cider Vinegar has a bit more bite and the white vinegar
is a bit smoother... especially when you use 2 cups of sugar.)

Mix and bring to a boil and simmer for one minute...

Remove from the heat and let cool for a couple minutes
then add 1 cup of ice cubes and stir until they are gone. Put cubed watermelon rinds in jars and pour the still warm (not hot) brine over the rinds and put lids on. When completely cooled, refrigerate. Let set at least 1 day before eating, the flavor will intensify the longer they set.