Making Pickles: My New Obsession

I have a whole bookcase full of cookbooks, and I will read a cookbook from cover to cover.  People who know me know that a great or interesting cookbook is a great gift for me.  I especially enjoy vintage cookbooks because they can give us a real insight as to the foodways of the past.  I recently had an abundance of green tomatoes that had developed on a rapidly dying vine.  In search of some green tomato recipes I pulled out a couple of my favorite oldies - one is a Menonite Cookbook published in 1950.  The other is the Little House Cookbook, which is a newer book that features recipes for many of the dishes mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House book series.  I found my tomato recipes - one for green tomato pickles, (meh)  the other for green tomato preserves (fantastic).  Here's the other thing I discovered:  at some point along the way in our change from a primarily agricultural/  rural society to urban, one where our food is grown and sold to us by a handful of corporations, a decision was made that "pickles" means pickled cucumbers.  There are rows and rows of pickled cucumbers at my local grocery and little else.  There are a couple of jars of pickled beets, one brand of pickled okra, and one brand of pickled green beans ($7 for a small jar!)  Going through the books I was astonished at not only all the different pickle recipes - some with dill, some with mustard, some with curry, etc. - but the variety of fruits and vegetables that were pickled or preserved was amazing.  Yes, cucumbers, okra, and beets, but also squash, tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, peaches, plums, beans, peppers, onions, even watermelon rind.  I compost watermelon rind.  I consider it to be garbage.  They were pickling it!  One of my favorite recipes was for "End of Garden" pickles.  Basically, you take whatever's left over from a harvest - a few okra, some green beans, one gangly squash, etc. and you bung it in a jar and pickle it together.  Brilliant.  I recently bought a big bag of green beans on sale for $1 a pound.  I haven't done the math yet, but with vinegar costing mere pennies and if I use garden herbs a quart of pickled green beans are bound to come in for less than $7!   Here's how to do it:

Green tomato pickles. Meh.

Pick your veggie and pick your recipe.  Do you want sweet pickles, dill, or spicy?  There are loads of pickle recipes all over the Web.  Here's the recipe I used for sweet and sour sugar snap pea pickles. They were addictive. I only had enough sugar snap peas to make one jar of pickles since the kids go out and munch on them while they are outside playing.  Sterilize your jar(s) and lids.  Remember jars and rims can be reused, but you need to purchase new lids each time you do any canning.  Once jars are sterilized stuff them with the sugar snap peas that have had their strings removed, add some red pepper flakes, and 1 clove garlic per jar.  In a saucepan combine 1 1/4 c. white wine vinegar, 1 1/4 c. water, 1 Tbsp salt, and 1 Tbsp sugar and bring to a boil.  Pour hot vinegar into the jars, seal with lids and rims and place in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes to seal.  Make sure the water fully covers the jars.  Remove and let cool.  Check the lid for a proper seal.  If the lid pops it didn't seal.  Put any that don't seal in the fridge.  You are supposed to let them sit for 10 days to let the flavors meld.  Good luck with that.  I broke into mine the next day and they were gone within the hour.

Dilly beans.  Oh.Yeah.

For dilly beans, follow the same procedure, only omit the sugar and add 1 sprig of dill to the jars before putting in the liquid.  Truly addictive.  Great with martinis!  Happy pickling!
For more on canning click here.