Easy Pickles - Preserve Fresh Cucumbers

Easy Homemade Pickles

These are dill pickles with a hint of sweet.  The end of summer is a good time to buy cucumbers in bulk. Dill is a great herb to have in any garden that has some sun.  It reseeds itself in our garden every year.  The flowers are beautiful and in the late summer can be used for pickles. The small cucumbers are best for use in this recipe, but as long as they are organically grown, the large ones are good to use also.

Ingredients:

• About 3 lbs organic pickling cucumbers sliced into ¼ inch thick slices
• 2 cp organic white vinegar
• 2 cp water
•  2 tbl salt
• 1 ½ tbl organic sugar
• 1 tbl peppercorn, coriander, mustard seed
• 3 or 4 large dill flowers or a bunch of dill
• About 2 cloves garlic cut into slices

Optional – cayenne (added to vinegar mixture) or a little sliced hot pepper in each jar to taste

Combine vinegar, water, salt, sugar and dry spices in a nonreactive saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Meanwhile slice the cucumbers with the skin on into ½ to ¼ inch slices.  Use a very large, very clean glass jar or several small ones.    Place some dill flowers or fresh dill in each jar as well as some garlic.  Place the sliced cucumbers into the jar and poor the hot vinegar solution onto the slices.  After they cool a little cover the jar with a lid and keep refrigerated.

Russian Beet Salad with Boiled Beets, Apple and Potato

Russian Swiss Beet Salad

When you are preparing the beets leave a few out to boil and use them in a fall Russian Beet Salad.  It doesn’t sound good, but make it anyway and you will be surprised.  The salad uses vegetables that are ripe in the fall together and is unusual.  This is also a great recipe to use with Organic Love Beets that are always available – they are cooked and peeled (you can buy them in bulk at Costco). If you don’t want the expensive of buying sour cream, just use a homemade vinaigrette dressing.  This salad is also good using only beets and apples (just use proportionally more).

Use the same amount of beets, potatoes and apples

-        1 part beets (6 medium beets).

-        1 part waxy or salad potatoes (2 large potatoes).

http://www.marthastewart.com/271696/potatoes-101

-        1 part apples (2 large apples).

Dressing:

• -        1 cup of organic sour cream
• -        2 tb organic Apple Cider vinegar (we use Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar).
• -        1 teaspoon organic mustard (we get this at Whole Foods).
• -        ¼ cup of sour pickles or cornichon (we make them in August when organic cucumbers are plentiful).
• -        2 or 3 organic spring onions or ½ small yellow onion.
• -        Sea salt to taste (I used a half teaspoon).

Boil potatoes until tender, boil beets until tender; drain and cool.  Meanwhile, Chop the onions and pickles (fine dice). Combine the onion and vinegar for the dressing.  Let it sit for a minute and then add all of the other ingredients and stir it.   Cut the beets, potatoes and apples into equal sized cubes (we used ½ inch cubes).  Add them to the dressing and stir until combined.  Adjust the salt.

Add the dressing to the cut beet, potato and apple mixture.  Refrigerate if you do not eat it right away.  Serve at room temperature or cold.

Saving the Harvest: Beets

Saving Beets for Winter

We buy beets in bulk in the late summer (for example we can get a 4 qt basket for about 10.00$).  We then slice, blanch and freeze them to roast all winter long.  They can go from the freezer to the oven and be roasted in 1 to 2 hours.  I get them out of the freezer, break them up a little and coat them with organic olive oil and some sea salt.  Then roast them for between 1-2 hours at 350 degrees until at least some are caramelized (a little brown and shriveled).  The longer they roast, the better they taste (but don’t roast them too long and burn them).   I’ve served these beets at dinner parties and have had people ask me how I made them.  Sometimes I think that they don’t believe me when I tell them how simple they are to make.  They are surprisingly good just roasted with good organic olive oil (we get it in bulk at Costco) and sea salt.

Ingredients:

-        Raw organic beets preferable bought in bulk

Prep and Cooking:

Peel the beets.  This is what takes the most time and it is really boring.  Slice them in ¼ to ½ inch slices.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the beets and bring back to a boil for about 3 minutes.  Scoop them with a slotted spoon so that you can keep the boiling water and cook them in smaller batches of about 3 cups each.  Let them cool a little and freeze them in flattened portions. 

If you are too lazy to get out the food processor and clean it afterwards (like me) or don’t have one, you can slice the beets and proceed with the recipe.  I also once added currants (see picture).