I planted cukes, pumpkins and nasturtiums all in the same row. Now I have a jungle of green leaves with bright orange and yellow blossoms everywhere. Quite charming! A day or so ago I decided to peek beneath the leaves and see what was happening down there. To my surprise there were 10 chubby little cucumbers lying there in the shade! Hmmm, what to do with 10 cukes? I gave a few away, but that left me with 6. Too few for a batch of pickles. Too many for hubby and I to eat. Then it came to me...surely there must be recipes for pickles that you don't can...that you just make and refrigerate. A little search of the web, and sure enough; refrigerator pickles! I made a couple of jars today...it was as easy as pie! I'm thinking that I'll probably keep making little batches as long as I can get cukes that are fresh and small enough. Why not? Have you seen what they charge for pickles in the stores these days? Highway robbery! Last time I checked they wanted about $7 for a large jar of pickles in my local market. That's crazy. What does your store charge for dill pickles these days?
The recipe is from a nice blog called 'A Couple Cooks.' I liked it because it is simple, straightforward, and a small batch. Refrigerator dills last a month. I mean, realistically, how many pickles can an empty nester couple eat in a month. Two jars is probably fine.
I checked out their list of recipes, and I'm going back for more. These folks cook my kind of food!
Voila, finished result! Took maybe 20 minutes or so.
A little advice about this recipe; Two widemouth pint jars will hold about four sliced cukes. That is, four small to medium-ish sized ones. You don't want them too long or they won't fit into the jar. (You could slice them crosswise, but I prefer larger, crunchier chunks.) I bought a dozen jars with the intent of using the rest for freezer jam. Widemouth is the way to go for freezing jam in jars. Expansion during the freezing process can cause the curved narrow mouth jars to break--not good!
I got my coriander seeds and peppercorns in the bulk section of the store. Much cheaper for a little batch. And since my garden cilantro aka coriander is going to seed anyway, I'll for sure be collecting the seeds and drying them for future recipes. Why not? Red peppers look pretty in the jar, but they don't agree with me, so I didn't include them. But wouldn't these jars be gorgeous with some yellow and red pepper slices in them? What a nice gift they'd make!
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1 comment:
I think I'll give this a try. I just don't do that much canning with the two of us here now but this does look good and I do love a great pickle! And THANK YOU so much for spelling voila correctly!!! It's one of my pet peeves...;j
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