Fermented Pickles (and Warm Salad)

One of my cucumber varieties started producing (the other two are flowering now), and I have had cucumbers for about a week now. I wanted pickles, even though I didn't have many yet, so I made a small jar a few days ago that tasted ready today. I actually just made a quart of salt brine, so that I could make a jar at a time as I have some extra stuff (not that making salt brine is hard, but might as well just measure it out once and have it ready to go). So far the brine has resulted in this small jar of cucumbers, and a quart of dilly beans, which are my favorite.

My experience lacto-fermenting cucumbers is that they do not last as long as other things. The cucumbers I need to eat in a month or so, but if I leave them for the winter or spring, they are too soft and I don't eat them. The dilly beans (and kraut) always stay crisp, and I keep those in the fridge for a year and they are still good.

My method was to make a fairly salty brine, which tends to be better for hot weather: I used 3 T of salt to 1 quart water, though you could use less. Once you have the brine, you can pour that over whatever veggies you want to pickle: cucumbers, green beans, green tomatoes, garlic, peppers, etc. You can add in any herbs or spices you like. Below is what I would use in a quart of (dill) pickle.

Fermented Pickles
1 quart jar filled with veggie of choice
1 head flowering/seeded dill
1-2 garlic cloves, peeled
pinch of peppercorns
red chili pepper flakes
fresh oak/horseradish/cherry or grape leaf
*(if you have it to keep the veg crunchy)
salt brine solution (3 T salt to 1 quart water)

Put everything in a jar and stuff it full as well as you can. Be sure to use the freshest vegetables you have, and to remove the flowers from cuke ends and trim the green beans. Ideally, you want all veggies to be submerged under the brine, but they sometimes get sneaky and stick out, or the spices float. This means you may get a little white film on anything sticking out, which you can just pull off. I just loosely cover my jar with the lid, screwed on but not tight, and don't worry about it. But you can also fill a ziplock with some water and use that to press everything under the brine, or fill a smaller jar with something to weight the veggies down. Sometimes the liquid will overflow, so I set it on a plate and check them every day or two.

These take anywhere from 2-5 days, depending on the heat and how you like your pickles. Taste them and decide what you like.

I ate my pickles on a cheeseburger, and also made a warm-ish salad of seared zucchini, tomatoes, blanched green beans, cucumbers, basil, mint, and feta. It was delicious with a simple vinagrette on top.

Ginger overload

About a week ago, I got some free cabbages from a friend (thanks, Butter Nut!) and thought I would make them into kimchi. I bought a crap ton of carrots, ginger, garlic and scallions in preparation and then ... nothing. For some reason, I couldn't get over the 12-hour soaking period required by the recipe I wanted to use. Thankfully, soon came a better cabbage-fermentation idea (what's up, kraut party people?) and life went on. Except I still had a crap ton of carrots, ginger, garlic and scallions. Enter: Mark Bittman and his wonderfully searchable cookbooks. All of these recipes come from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

1.) Carrot ginger orange soup

What you need:
1/1/2 lb carrots, sliced
2 T butter
1 t sweetener (sugar, maple, honey, etc)
6 C vegetable stock or water
1 T minced ginger
1 T grated orange zest
3/4 C orange juice
Cream, sour cream, yogurt, etc. (if you're into that sort of thing with your soup)

What you do
Put the carrots, orange juice, zest ginger, and sugar into a skillet/saucepan and bring to a biol on high. Cover, turn heat to medium low, and cook 5 more minutes. Uncover and raise the heat to boil off the liquid. Lower the heat again and continue to cook until carrots are tender. Add the stock and bring to a boil again. Simmer until the carrots are tender enough to smoosh with your choice of immersion blender or regular blender.

2.) Spicy cilantro ginger pesto


What you need
2 C cilantro leaves
salt
2 cloves garlic
3 T oil
1 T lime juice
1 T chopped ginger
1 jalapeno or other hot pepper to taste

What you do
Throw it all in a food processor and blend until tasty.

3.) Pickled ginger (because when you're unsure what to do with something you happen to have a lot of , why NOT make a pickle?)


What you need
enough ginger to fill your jar (For this recipe, I used a fist-sized piece for 1/2 pint)
1/4 C vinegar (the original recipe calls for rice, but I used cider to no ill effect)
1-2 T sugar
1/4 C water
1 T salt

What you do
Thinly slice the ginger and toss with salt. Let sit in a bowl for 1 hour. Rinse *thoroughly* and pack into your jar. Heat equal parts vinegar and water with sugar to taste. Let cool a bit and pour over ginger into jar. This is a refrigerator pickle, so stick it in the fridge.

If Peter Piper pickled a peck of peppers...

Then how many peppers did Peter Piper pickle?

Go ahead, say it three times fast. Then pickle your own peck of peppers.

My banana pepper plant has been going, err, bananas this summer. Lucky me, since I LOVE pickled banana peppers on my pizza. I used the very official-looking recipe from the University of Georgia National Center for Home Food Preservation. Then I went and modified it, thus probably ruining all of the very carefully calculated ratios of whatnots to whoozits. I added another mystery pepper (larger, greener), omitted the celery seed (didn't have it), and semi-accidentally turned the jar on its side in the hot water bath. If you're still interested in coming over for pickled pepper and pepperoni pizzas with some pretty persnickety pals, let me know.

Pickled Beets

It has been so hot lately that I only want cold things to eat. I am also thinking ahead to fall - making pierogi with pickled beets and sauerkraut a la Bedlam. Beets are $1 a bunch at the farmer's market right now, and they are gorgeous! I tried this easy refrigerator pickling recipe and they smell and taste amazing - warm cinnamon spices with apple cider vinegar. The beets/brine will stay good in the fridge for up to 6 months, and you can replenish beets as they get eaten. I suspect these would be amazing on salad greens with goat cheese and pecans. yum.