I’ve often wondered what homemade pickles taste like, as I’ve never had them. One way to remedy that is to make my own.
Here we have some pickling cucumbers I grew in my Root Riot plot, cider vinegar, dill I grew in my deck planter, sugar, pickling salt, mustard seed, and garlic. These will stay in the refrigerator for a month with a small plate on top of them to keep the cucumbers in the brine, and cheesecloth on top of that. I’ll do periodic maintenance by skimming off the scum as it develops. Leaving the scum will ruin the brine, so it’s important to do that about once a day. I might also need to add more salt, depending, but it’s very important to have the right ratio of salt in the brine. If they aren’t eaten within several months, I will can the remainder.
One problem I have is a lack of gardening space, which means I don’t get a big harvest of cucumbers all at once. With this long-brine method, I can add more pickles as I harvest them, rather than having to make them all at once. As it is, I quartered the recipe, as there is no way I will produce 10 pounds of cucumbers.
The recipe is from Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg, and Beatrice Vaughan. It’s a classic on preserving – sort of a Joy of Cooking of food preservation. I have the fourth edition, but the fifth is the most current.
I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m hoping for delicious, crisp pickles. If I get soggy, yucky pickles, well, I suppose it’s a learning experience. Right?
This is a great idea! I have several cukes from the garden that I need to pickle. I wasn’t really thrilled with the ones I made last year – they were soft, not crisp. I am also a fan of Putting Food By; I’ll have to pull out my copy and see how I might go about doing this myself. My one obstacle might be our refrigerator, as it’s very poorly designed inside and I may not have the space. I can’t stand these side-by-side configurations!
Thanks, Trase.
I’ll admit I’m cheating a bit. The recipe calls for 40-50 deg F, but since I don’t have a spot in my house at that exact temperature and it’s about 90 outside, the fridge it is. So it’s a combination of the Little Crock Pickles recipe you’ll find in that book, and the various fridge pickle recipes I’ve found. I’m not too worried. I’d worry if I deviated from a reliable canning method, but I think this will be fine.
I wonder if you could take soft pickles and turn them into relish. I’d try that for tuna sandwiches since there are weeks when we almost live on that stuff in this house.
My mom always pickled/canned in the same step. But of course that assumes you have enough pickles to be worth the time to clean the jars etc.
I would do that, but I just don’t have enough at this point to justify it. A few days ago, I actually didn’t have enough to fill a jar.
Pingback: Root Riot 2010/07/21 | Green In Oak Park
Pingback: Homemade Sweet Relish | Green In Oak Park