Kitchen

[Mistreatedbycs]

Found a recipe for a brine you boil then cool, add the garlic cloves, peppercorns and dill.

Hope they stay crisp.

I remember my grandma making them in a crock and they "snapped" and were probably the best pickles.

Any suggestions, I have a second batch of pickles still growing on the vine that won't be ready for picking for a few days.

[SloopJohnB]

@Mistreatedbycs  No suggestions, but they sound yummy.  

[RespectLife]

@Mistreatedbycs 

I have made BJC recipe for Fridge Bread & Butter pickles for 2 yrs now with great succes.  Here is what she says....

Combine the cucumber, onion, red pepper and salt in a large bowl. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and then layer ice cubes on top of the towel. The ice helps to make the pickles crisp.

Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. When you're ready to make the pickles, discard the ice and rinse the cucumber, onion and red pepper. Drain well and rinse again. Drain well.

then you boil your pickling stuff and add the cukes....bring back to a boil...then jar and fridge them.

I am convinced she is right that it keeps them crisp.  I have done this ice deal when making other cuke salads and it works.

I don't have a recipe for Fridge Dill....would you share yours?  TIA

[Mistreatedbycs]

@RespectLife    I have more growing, I think I'm going to do your recipe on this batch, thanks so much.

Here's what mine was.

10-12 pickles

4 cups water

2 cups white vinegar

2 Tablespoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon sugar

big bunch of dill  (grew my own so I have a lot!)

1 head of garlic with all the skins removed and smashed (that was cumbersome)

10 peppercorn kernals (I used roughly a teaspoon of pickling spice which had the peppercorns in it)

Slice cucumbers slices or spears

to make the brine, combine water, salt vinegar and sugar in a sauce pan, bring to a boil and stir until salt and sugar is dissolved.  When the mixture comes to a boil, remove to cool to room temp

add pickles to jar, not so tight, add the dill garlic and peppercorns and cover with brine,  I layered mine so i would get everything between the layers of pickles.  seal airtight lid, store in frig for 1 wk

makes 3 quart jars...yes it does, I have a 1/2 gallon jar and a quart and it was perfect, nothing left over.

i picked my pickles and within the hour had them in jars, we'll find out in a week.

[RespectLife]

@Mistreatedbycs 

I can't thank you enough!  I will be glad to try a dill recipe.  We just picked a bunch yesty.  It is going to be a pickling weekend.

BJC has other pickle recipes on her site...but the Bread and Butter is the only one I have tried.  She has good pictures and more details on her website.

I didn't really want to get into canning...so these Fridge recipes have been great!

Thanks again!

[Mistreatedbycs]

@RespectLife 

I just picked another bowl filled with pickles....they grow so fast.

The worse part of canning is not the canning itself, even if it's refrigerator style, it's cleaning and sterilizing the jars, that takes the longest for me.

I can't tell you how they taste yet, I just did my first batch on the 20th and the recipe states they will be ready in 1 week so that's this coming Tuesday.

[RespectLife]

@Mistreatedbycs   I was a pickle factory on Saturday.

I made 3 batches of BJC Bread and Butter and two of your dill recipe.  I can't wait to try the dill!  I hope I will get enough dill flavor.

I found a small jar of dill seed I bought last year, so I added some of that.  I cute them into half size spears.

We planted WAY too many cukes this year!  I'm almost out of zucc but cukes have turned into the 'give-a-way' crop this year.

I have to try to find more Bell jars if they aren't sold out everywhere!

[D Kay]

Interesting.  I always thought of "bread and butter" pickles as being sweet.

[Mistreatedbycs]

@RespectLife 

I said enough is enough but I have more pickles to pick today!

This is another one I'm trying today.

6 cups sliced pickles

1 cup sweet thin sliced onion    

1 green pepper  sliced thin

1 cup vinegar

2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon salt   i always use kosher

1 tablespoon celery seed

heat vinegar, sugar, salt and celery seed  (i would bring to a boil)  Cool slightly.

pour over pickles, onions and green pepper

store in frig.   

recipe says it keeps for many months

I remember my mom made these with thin sliced onions and green pepper and she had the pickles thin too...we took them out of the jar

and ate them like a salad...that's what I remember.

Next year I'm going to do zukes too...I love dipping them in a thin version of pancake mix and deep frying, salt and parm cheese...oh yum.

loading up the frig with pickles, I think I'll have to give a few jars to my neighbors, there's no way they will all be eaten.   Waiting to try, the recipe I gave you for dill says wait one week, I did them on 7/20 so maybe tomorrow!!!!!!!   The one's I did on Saturday say wait 3 days, that's tomorrow too!   Guess it will be pickle day tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy yours too!   I never tried that dill recipe I gave to you so we'll both find out but they sure do look good sitting the frig.

[Mistreatedbycs]

@RespectLife    Waiting on my tomatoes, that's a bumper crop for me too this year.  My tomato plants are way over the gutters on the garage.

I get sun in the morning, treated the soil last year and everything is growing so tall and the plants are huge for big boys.   I planted some early girls and one plant is poor and the other one is short but the tomatoes are bountiful.

Do you have tomatoes too?

Oh and what did you do with all your zukes?