Comfort Zones

We all like our routines, me as much as anyone else. Sometimes it is good to try new things.  Sometimes...not so much.  

We like refrigerator pickles around here.  I have always used the easy recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook that I gave Captain for Christmas a few years ago.  It’s a good recipe but it has all this extra crap in it like carrots and onions.  We just like salt and vinegar.  

A little...and I do mean little...research on the Internet and I found a salt and vinegar fridge pickle recipe on a blog.  Sounded easy enough and I had all the ingredients, so I put some together last week.  

Remember how I said math wasn’t my thing?  Well, science really isn’t either...they are both too logical for me.  This is probably why I didn’t realize that 3 teaspoons of pickling salt added to ½ cup of vinegar would be a nasty combination.  That’s all there was in each jar...sliced pickles, salt, vinegar, and some fresh dill...shake it up and put it in the fridge.    

The blog I looked at said they were edible in an hour, so I tried one at supper.  Holy pucker up, batman!  Drinking straight vinegar out of the bottle would have been better.  Shake the three bottles up again, put them in the fridge on their lids, leave them overnight.  

Nope, they weren’t any better the next morning due to salt load.  Captain might like them...he’s a saltaholic...but I thought they were nasty.  Like I said, science isn’t my thing, but I did an experiment anyway.  One jar I left alone.  One jar I added half a cup of water and a teaspoon of sugar.  The last jar I just added water to the top of the jar.  Shook them all up again, turned them on their lids, and let them sit for seven days.  I’m here to tell you that was an experiment that failed.  They were still nasty, so it will be back to the Betty Crocker recipe.

Easy Refrigerator Pickles

6 cups thinly sliced unpeeled cucumbers

2 small onions, sliced

1 medium carrot, thinly sliced

1-¾ cup sugar

1 cup white or cider vinegar

2 tablespoons salt

1 tablespoon chopped fresh or 1 tsp dried dill weed

In a 2-½ to 3 quart glass or Tupperware container, layer cucumbers, onions, and carrot.  In a medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients until sugar is dissolved; pour over cucumbers.  Cover and refrigerate at least 24 hours.

I tried a new canned dill pickle recipe last year, but a different outcome.  For a few years, I used Mrs. Wages pickling mix and then switched to the Ball Canning recipe.  Mrs. Wages was pretty stout, and the Ball recipe was just okay.  Back to the Internet.  Found a canned dill pickle recipe with just salt and vinegar, and of course dill.  No sugar, no spices.  I was sure they were going to be awful, but they were AMAZING!  

We finally had enough cucumbers from the garden a few days ago that I could make a batch of pickles.  It was only three quarts, but it’s a start.  The recipe is so simple!  I don’t think I’m infringing on copyrights or revealing secrets since I found the recipe easily enough with a basic Google search.  

Blue Ribbon Dill Pickles

8-½ cups of water

2-¼ cups white vinegar

½ cup pickling salt

Bring to a boil, remove from heat (or keep on very low simmer).

While all of that is going on, I have been running the jars and rims through the hottest, longest cycle on the dishwasher, and I am prepping the cucumbers.  Just scrub them under cold water to remove those pricky things, slice a little bit off each end, and then line them up according to size.  Anything smaller than my thumb I leave whole, but the rest I cut into spears.

Once the jars are done, I put a few sprigs of fresh dill (thanks Kari McGowan!) in the bottom of the jar, pack in the cucumbers, and put another few sprigs of dill on top.  Add the brine to each jar to ½ inch head space, removing any air bubbles from the sides of the jar with a butter knife or one of those fancy-schmancy air bubble removers.  Place lids and and finger-tighten rims.  Don’t over tighten them. 

My monster canner will hold 7 quart jars, but if I don’t have that many to process, I put empty jars filled with hot water in the canner as well, just to keep the filled jars from rattling around and breaking.  Fill the canner with hot water to just below the jar necks.  Cover and bring to almost a boil.  Remove jars from the canner to a large bath towel.  Cover the jars with the rest of the towel to cool and seal.  Check lids for seal in 24 hours...but they will probably ping before that.  LOVE that ping!!  Once the jars have sealed, write the date on the lid with a Sharpie, because pickles need to cure for six weeks for optimum taste.  Longest six weeks of my life…

We have enough harvest from the garden again to make another batch.  We are also overrun with zuchinni because Captain’s mom is the only one who eats them, and she has been on vacation in Spokane for three weeks.  The steers like them, though, so that is good.

We are anxiously awaiting the tomato harvest because we are completely out of pizza sauce, pasta sauce, salsa, and vegetable soup and nearly out of chili base. Not cool! I used Mrs. Wages for the pizza, pasta, and chili products but I do a homemade salsa. Hopefully (1) get the two weeks of vacation I asked for in September and (2) the tomatoes are ripe at that time or else I am going to be crazy busy canning in the evenings and on weekends!

Just because things don’t always work out the way we want or think they should, it is usually worth it to at least try something new once in awhile because you never know when you will hit a gold mine.  And if you hit big scoops of poop, you can always go back to the old way!