Pickle Madness!

I've been a little obsessed with homemade pickles recently. The funny thing is, generally, I like pickles in just a normal kind of way where I might buy a jar a couple times a year and then forget about them entirely for months on end. But for some reason, I just feel inordinately COOL to be making them on my own. Hence the temporary homemade pickle obsession...

My beast of a cucumber plant is producing about 15-20 cucumbers per week. I can make a 1-quart jar of pickle spears with 4 cucumbers. You do the math... I just gave a way a huge bag of them to my friend's mom because I was being totally overtaken!

Anyway, all that to say, after lots of experimenting and forcing co-workers and boyfriend and boyfriend's children in to formal taste-tests where I grill them with questions, I have narrowed down my favorite two recipes and I am ready to share!

Basic Pickle Brine:

(Follow these quantities to make 1 jar of refrigerator pickles. Increase proportionally if you want more!)

1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
1 T salt
approx 4 pickling cucumbers, sliced into spears or cross-wise for sandwich slices
1 sterilized 1-quart canning jar

- Bring water, vinegar and salt to just a boil and then remove from heat. Make sure the salt has dissolved. Cool to room temp.

Now, for your flavorings... You can get totally wild and creative with these and just start throwing in whatever sounds good! I made one jar with garlic, fresh basil, pepercorns and Jamaican All-Spice berries. They turned out pretty good. But the two basic recipes below were my favorite and got the best "review" from my trusty taste-testers.

Simple Garden Dill Pickles

3 large garlic cloves, slightly crushed
1/4 white onion, sliced into rings
1 tsp freeze-dried dill
1 jalapeno, cut into rings (*If you remove the seeds, you will get a little jalapeno flavor but no heat. I am going to try leaving the seeds in next time for a little extra "kick")

-Place ingredients in the bottom of the jar. Pack in cucumber spears or slices. Pour brine over all until the jar is filled and put on the lid. Refrigerate at least 7 days.

Zippy Spicy "Give Your Taste Buds A Shock" Pickles

(Sorry for that title... I've been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to call these ones and that is all that came to me.)

3 large garlic cloves, slightly crushed
1 tsp freeze-dried dill
3/4 T Penzey's pickling spices (This spice blend is amazing! It has bay leaves, mustard seed, cassia, ginger, allspice, cloves, dill seed, star anise, coriander, cardamom, coriander and crushed red pepper flakes)

-Place ingredients in the bottom of the jar. Pack in cucumber spears or slices. Pour brine over all until the jar is filled and put on the lid. Refrigerate at least 7 days.



And there you have it. These are way too easy and if you can't get your hands on pickling cucumbers, just use regular store ones. None of my jars have lasted more than a week, but from what I've read, these should last about a month in the fridge.

Have a lovely Saturday!