Pickling!
So it's summer and the cukes are going mad. Slicers, picklers and lemons abound in our garden. What to do? What to do? Well the slicers are good in the beet salads I've been making, the lemons are wonderful plain and theres' only one thing to do with the picklers. Pickle them! I've been reading up on pickling all winter in preparation for when this time would arrive, and yet I'm still quite overwhelmed. There are just soooo many ways to pickle a pickle. So I'm gonna try as many as I can. Here are the first 3 attempts.
Experiment #1
Fermented dill pickles using whey, salt, dill, and mustard seeds. These sit in jar at room temperature for 3 days. They've just completed their first 24 hours. I get the whey from the homemade yogurt that I make every couple of weeks. The trick is making sure the cukes stay below the liquid.
Experiment #2
Bread & Butter Pickles using the ice method with sweet onion, vinegar, sugar turmeric, coriander and celery seed. Slice the cukes and onion and mix with salt. Then let sit in a bowl covered with ice for a few hours. Next, bring the vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil and add the slices. Now let cool and refrigerate. Should be ready for eatin' the next day or once cooled.
Experiment #3
The old fashion method of dill pickles with lots of garlic in my handy dandy crock. I had so many pickle cukes that I didn't know what to do, so I did the easiest thing possible and threw them in a crock full of water, vinegar, salt, a whole lot of garlic and ample dill. Weight it all down and these should be ready in a few days but supposedly even tastier in 3-4 weeks.
I've been reading a book from 1965 that is full of information about the history of pickles and all sorts of weird pickle knowledge, lore and poetry. The following recipe caught me a bit off guard.
RECIPE TO PRESERVE A HUSBAND (from The Complete Book of Pickles - Leonard Louis Levinson)
In choosing a husband, women should first be careful of their selection. Do not choose too young or too green and take only such as have been raised in a good, moral atmosphere. When you have decided on selection, turn your thoughts to domestic use. Some wives insist on keeping husbands in a pickle, while others are consistently getting them in hot water. This only makes them sour, hard and sometimes bitter. Even the poorest varieties can be made sweet, tender and good by garnishing them with patience, spicing them with smiles and flavoring them with kisses. For a finished product, husbands should be wrapped in a mantle of kindness, kept warm with the fire of devotion and served with peaches and cream. Husbands prepared this way will keep for years.
So it's summer and the cukes are going mad. Slicers, picklers and lemons abound in our garden. What to do? What to do? Well the slicers are good in the beet salads I've been making, the lemons are wonderful plain and theres' only one thing to do with the picklers. Pickle them! I've been reading up on pickling all winter in preparation for when this time would arrive, and yet I'm still quite overwhelmed. There are just soooo many ways to pickle a pickle. So I'm gonna try as many as I can. Here are the first 3 attempts.
Fermented dill pickles using whey, salt, dill, and mustard seeds. These sit in jar at room temperature for 3 days. They've just completed their first 24 hours. I get the whey from the homemade yogurt that I make every couple of weeks. The trick is making sure the cukes stay below the liquid.
Bread & Butter Pickles using the ice method with sweet onion, vinegar, sugar turmeric, coriander and celery seed. Slice the cukes and onion and mix with salt. Then let sit in a bowl covered with ice for a few hours. Next, bring the vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil and add the slices. Now let cool and refrigerate. Should be ready for eatin' the next day or once cooled.
Experiment #3
The old fashion method of dill pickles with lots of garlic in my handy dandy crock. I had so many pickle cukes that I didn't know what to do, so I did the easiest thing possible and threw them in a crock full of water, vinegar, salt, a whole lot of garlic and ample dill. Weight it all down and these should be ready in a few days but supposedly even tastier in 3-4 weeks.
I've been reading a book from 1965 that is full of information about the history of pickles and all sorts of weird pickle knowledge, lore and poetry. The following recipe caught me a bit off guard.
RECIPE TO PRESERVE A HUSBAND (from The Complete Book of Pickles - Leonard Louis Levinson)
In choosing a husband, women should first be careful of their selection. Do not choose too young or too green and take only such as have been raised in a good, moral atmosphere. When you have decided on selection, turn your thoughts to domestic use. Some wives insist on keeping husbands in a pickle, while others are consistently getting them in hot water. This only makes them sour, hard and sometimes bitter. Even the poorest varieties can be made sweet, tender and good by garnishing them with patience, spicing them with smiles and flavoring them with kisses. For a finished product, husbands should be wrapped in a mantle of kindness, kept warm with the fire of devotion and served with peaches and cream. Husbands prepared this way will keep for years.
