Pickles

Martha Stewart has some pretty fantastic recipes. I'm actually positive that the recipes she creates are pure perfection, assuming the cook is also flawless. 

Lately I am into her pickle recipe. Generally you use pickling cucumbers/regular cucumbers, but I love that you can pickle other vegetables if you want. Everything from peppers, onions, garlic, or (cooked/steamed) carrots or cauliflower.

They have a sweet/sour flavor. I have also made straight up dill pickles (the strickly salty kind) by fermenting them for a few days then sticking in the fridge when they get the right flavor. I am into sweet/salty more right now. Not sure why... Just am! 

This recipe involves a heated mixture that is poured over the vegetables. They marinate for a few hours (next day is ever better!) and have a fabulous flavor. 

Here is the recipe I used. It makes 3 1/2 cups.

INGREDIENTS

• 3 cups white vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
• 2 to 4 small red chiles (optional)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 1/2 cups fresh dill fronds (about 1 bunch)
• Prepared Vegetables

DIRECTIONS

1. STEP 1

   In a medium saucepan, combine white vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard seed, celery seed, red chiles (optional), and ground turmeric. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Arrangeprepared vegetables and dill fronds in one or more jars. Pour hot brine into jar to completely cover vegetables and seal jar. Refrigerate until cool, about 2 hours (or up to 1 week).

Make sure you stuff those jars as full as you can get them! You want all of the cucumbers to be covered when you pour the liquid over them.

I only changed two things.

1.) I substituted a little more than half of the sugar for Truvia, or stevia sugar. I could not tell the difference. Just make sure you know the conversion rate for using stevia... It has much more sweetness per teaspoon than normal sugar.

2.) I did not use fresh dill (I know, Martha is saying SHAMMMEEEE). In a perfect world, I would always have fresh dill always on hand. Unfortunately, I do not have the money, time, or patience to maintain multiple fresh herbs, so I just used about a tablespoon of dry dill. 

3.) Okay, 3 things. I added dried chilies instead of the actual chile pepper. Sometimes I throw in other herbs like coriander and anise seed just to see the flavors that happen. It's cool to see if it adds an extra kick. Usually not. HA! 

The cool part is you don't need to "can" them. Just find an airtight container (I find jars to be best), seal when still hot, and throw directly into the fridge.

This time, I used cucumbers, whole garlic cloves, and sliced onions. Last time (as you can see) I also included sweet peppers. The flavor was AWESOME. You can even throw the garlic/onion/peppers in when cooking a stir fry or similar dish, and it adds a really nice lil sum'sum.

Aight. If you like my stuff, SHARE IT!!! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Now go drink some...

...root beer.