Well I now have another thing on my list that I won't be buying at the store any longer. And that is pickles. I have long wanted to try my hand at making pickles. I don't know why but then why not? It sounded like fun and well we love pickles.
After many years of heeing and hawing over it I finally decided to do it. It took me a visit to three different stores to find pickling cucumbers (it was December after all) and then another visit to the store the next day as I forgot to get pickling salt. So I set out to make three pints of bread and butter chips for me and three pints of dill spears for the husband. Now his were more along the line of Polish dills...with garlic, peppercorns, dill and such. One of the pints we put red pepper flakes in.
The process was amazingly easy. The Polish spears took no time at all to process. The bread and butter took longer but only because the recipe called for them to sit with salt and ice for a few hours. But while it took longer it was still really easy.
Then came the hard part...the waiting. The Polish pickles needed at least 4 weeks to pickle. The bread and butter I could have opened after a week but I figured to wait until we could open both jars. Every week, I would pick them up to give them a good swirl to distribute the spices and to check to make sure the pickling liquid wasn't getting cloudy. I also check for any signs that the pickling process was not working.
The wait was hard but worth it. I cracked open a jar of the bread and butter pickles Thursday evening. Only one day early! I fished out a pickle chip and crunch. Yay they had that crispness I love in pickles. The flavor was really balanced between the tangy and the sweet...it was just not as strong as I would like. I like the flavors to kinda smack you in the face. But for the first try not too shabby and they got better as they got colder. The Polish pickles were cracked open on Friday night and those were tasty. Again they were crispy and were full of flavor. The only thing for me was that the dill got a little lost so I know next time to add more into each jar.
Again for a first try, I'm pretty impressed with myself. There are a few tweaks I need to make to each recipe and a few things I learned in the process. One is to make sure I make enough brine for the bread and butter pickles. I barely had enough and as time passed, the pickles soak in the liquid so by the time the waiting time passed, the liquid barely covered the pickles. But yay pickles for the win!
This is just now one more processed food we can cut out of our pantry. This list is growing longer and honestly that makes me happy. Now we are not going to cut out all processed foods as I just don't have the time to make everything from scratch. But every little bit helps and it leads us to a more healthy lifestyle.
We already don't do any of the pre packaged rice or pasta dinners any more. I make rice pilaf and pastas now. Very rarely do we use canned or frozen veggies. And the frozen veggies we have been using, I've frozen myself. Same with fruits. I make all our jams, marmalade and apple butter. I make our trail mixes and granola. And I am trying to use the healthiest versions of items that are processed.
It's all about being healthier, wanting support our local farmer's and growers and honestly I really enjoy it.
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