Monthly Archives: August 2009

>No Rest for the Pickled

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Yes, I went on vacation and got out of the city for awhile, but listen to me…I never, EVER, go on vacation from my pickle devotion. Nope. Not ever. A friend and I, the lovely Rebecca (she makes me pickle martinis), flew down to North Carolina and just had our way with the state and some of South Carolina too. We frolicked in waterfalls and floated down a river, we ate boiled peanuts and drank Sun Drop and Cheerwine…and, yeah, I found some pickles. The very first night we got into Asheville, NC, I found a jar in the fridge labeled Smokey Mountain Dill Spears and got a good feeling for the rest of the week…

So, yeah, I’m always looking for pickles, but actually my main focus for this trip, besides drinking while in water (beer+water=vacation), was to find and eat as many boiled peanuts as possible. If you aren’t Southern, chances are you have no idea what I’m talking about and for that I’m sorry. Google “boiled peanuts” and then set out for parts below the Mason Dixon Line or click here. The next morning we checked out a farmer’s market (they are plentiful in Asheville) and officially began the search for peanuts and pickles. I scored a tube of homemade chapstick, but it wasn’t until the following day that we hit the jackpot.

In the South you’ll see roadside stands all along the highway selling peaches, corn, tomatoes, watermelons and if you’re lucky, boiled peanuts, and if you’re blessed by the sweet baby Jesus, you’ll also find rows and rows of pickles. I love stopping at these stands (and gas stations)and this one had more types of pickles than I have ever seen before. I chose 2 jars, (just 2), and hoped we’d continue to strike gold as we drove across the state.

The first jar I cracked open as we drove to the Green River to go tubin’ was the Carolina Hot & Crunchy Dills. They were “hot”, because they’d been sitting outside for days, maybe weeks, and they were not in any way crunchy. But guess what? I ate them anyway. They were kind of like Wickles, but not as good-because nothing comes close to Wickles! Then I cracked open the Carolina Spicy Garlic Dill Chips and ate almost the whole jar with my bare hands ( I really should travel with a pickle fork) while everyone else was chugging beer before getting to the river. The jar was chock full of cayenne pepper, so much so, the pickles had a crunch to them just from the crust of cayenne on them. I know they would have been a million times better if I had let them get cold first but I just couldn’t wait.

I’ve done a google search for both the “Carolina” pickles and the “Smokey Mountain” pickles that I found in the fridge and found neither available online. I suppose one just has to GO there to get them and I am SO GLAD I DID. If anyone out there has had these or knows if you can get them online, let us all know!

I took my Carolina pickle trio out onto the front porch for a photo shoot and this El Gato showed up and shooed away the squirrels and made himself comfortable.


He barely moved once he laid down and was still there the day we left…I can’t blame him, I wish I was still there.

Twitt

>12 Jars

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I’m back from vacation and I’m battling post-vacation depression but I am taking a few steps to help…drinking heavily and eating pickles.

I made my second batch of homemade pickles the week before I headed down to North Carolina for a vacation in the mountains and I knew they would be ready by the time I got back. My first attempt earlier this summer was a success but I wanted to tweak my recipe just a little. This time around my goal was to use less salt and more garlic and dill. My trip to the farmer’s market for this round of pickling supplies was a little different than the last. For example, the first time I bought a bunch of dill at the market, it was the size of a homemade witch’s broom, the second time I bought a bunch of dill (from the same vendor) it was the size of an elaborate bloody mary garnish…I should have gotten more but I didn’t and then I bought just one head of garlic and discovered about 8 cloves…sigh, I was a little short on the very ingredients that I had hoped to “crank up” in my recipe (see, I AM depressed… I can’t come up with another description besides “crank up”).

But I set about pickling anyhow and I found that this time around I really felt comfortable and just sort of “winged” it (the first time I stared at the recipe for hours the night before and checked it a hundred times during the process).

I used a recipe for 8lbs of cucumbers but I had way more (13-15 lbs), I used less salt than was called for, and I just eyeballed the mustard seeds and used whatever looked good for the dill, garlic and peppers.

Here’s more or less what I used:

2 quarts of water (I used bottled water)
1 1/2 quarts of distilled white vinegar
3/4 cups of pickling or sea salt
Bring the water, salt and vinegar to a boil, stirring to make sure your salt dissovles. I also placed a hot pepper sliced down the middle in the pot to steep in the vinegar ( a little tip courtesy of Jennifer Biggs from Whining and Dining).
In each jar: I sprinkled a teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds
several sprigs of fresh dill
1 clove of garlic
1-2 fresh hot peppers
13-15 pounds of kirby cucumbers

After packing the jars with the washed and dried cucumbers I sprinkled some crushed red pepper on top and packed in a few more dill sprigs. I made 2 jars of whole pickles but I mostly sliced the cucumbers into spears and rings-you can fit alot more pickles into fewer jars this way.

The 12 jars I made before leaving have already dwindled in number…they are AMAZINGLY GOOD. If left unchecked I KNOW I could eat a jar a day because so far I, umm, have…but here’s what I’ve figured out… I CAN eat a jar a day if I want to, because I can make MORE. I CAN MAKE MORE!!!

I am the supplier, the dealer AND the junkie…ooooh and I feel just like Jesus’ son!

Twitt

>I Want a Clean Fight

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>If you haven’t been too busy keeping up with Toddlers and Tiaras, there has been plenty of drama around these parts. I had a fabulous prize to give away this week and after fierce competition (including a “sportswear” round) I crowned Ruby Verbena the winner…and then she just disappeared.

I was forced to choose my runner up, “LB”, but not before checking with her to make sure there was no foul play involved and she assured me that her boyfriend had no idea she was even in this competition and therefore couldn’t wack Ruby Verbena in the knees on her behalf. Plus, we don’t even know who Ruby Verbena really IS.

But we do NOW! Ruby emailed me today, tragically late, and lo and behold, I KNOW her (in fact, once lived with her but had no idea of her alias!) and so does the new winner LB! I have tried to calm down the obviously distraught “Ruby” by letting her know that even though she was stripped of her crown, pot, rack, funnel and tongs, there will be MORE giveaways to come (mostly just stuff from my house)…and that if she and LB wrestle over this prize to please, please, videotape it for the blog.

So Ruby, put in your flipper and smile through the pain. LB, get to picklin’ something besides your liver and perhaps, through the crazy magic of pickling and canning, the two of you might even one day share (but don’t videotape that, just the wrestling)!

P.S. the picture above is from the North Carolina Pickle Princess Pageant! Am I too old to compete?

Twitt

>Well, Well, Well…(HURRY!)

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>Dear Ruby Verbena,

There is a deadline to claim your prize so please, please, email be before 8 pm TODAY, August 12!!! If for some reason you cannot perform your duties, a runner up will be chosen!

Whaddaya know? BRIBERY WORKS.

The winner of the Ball Brand Fresh Preserving Kit from Jarden Home Brands is Ruby Verbena.
So Ruby, please email me (picklefreakblog@gmail.com) with your mailing address ASAP so I can get this awesome prize on its way to you!

I chose this winner for 3 reasons:

1. I want pickles and there’s no shame in that.

2. She began her comment, with “Dear Pickle Freak”. Now that’s just good home trainin’ right there.

3. She is unemployed, as are so many of you out there right now, and what better way to stretch a dollar than to win a free prize AND make your own pickles from your own garden? The good folks at Jarden, Pickle Freak and all the other canners in the canvolution are happy to help and further the movement!

I was really glad to see so many comments and I enjoyed discovering and reading your blogs. It’s inspiring to know so many people are out there canning and canning all sorts of things too. So far I’ve only pickled cucumbers (that’s just part of my freakish nature, again, no shame in that!), but I’m really curious to try green beans, carrots, peppers and even watermelon rinds one of these days and I certainly feel like I have all of you guys to fall back on for advice and recipes, so gosh, thanks guys!

Again, congratulations to Ruby Verbena, who obviously plays dirty, and sincere thanks to everyone for popping up and saying hello! There’s a CANVOLUTION going on out there and now we’re ALL a part of it!

Twitt

>The Good News

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>The Good News is that even though my crock pickles failed, my next batch of pickles did NOT. I made these pickles on July 13 and my recipe instructed to let them sit for 3 weeks, but after tasting my crock pickles, I got nervous and opened one jar a week early to make sure they were OK before I made a dozen more jars of shitty pickles. Pardon my French.

These pickles turned out sooo pretty. Aren’t they gorgeous? I couldn’t stop staring at them and fondling the jars for a week after I made them and they were made in a state of pure bliss in my crappy ‘lil Brooklyn kitchen and I’m pretty sure you can taste the love. I couldn’t be prouder of my first batch of Brooklyn Pickles!

I started with about 12 pounds of Kirby cucumbers, washed and dried. To each wide mouth jar (easier for packing the pickles IN and yanking one OUT when eating) I added a sprinkle of whole mustard seeds, a couple of cloves of garlic, a flowering dill head (just because they had them at the farmers market),a few sprigs of fresh dill and at least one habenero pepper(or “goat”pepper, thank you YoYo Kid).

For the brine I combined 1 1/2 quarts of vinegar, 2 quarts of water and 1 1/4 cups pickling salt (I used sea salt). I had to make the brine twice to fill up all the packed jars I had, which turned out to be 9. I stored the left over brine in a quart jar and kept it in the fridge until I needed it for another project.

Once the brine was brought to a boil I filled each jar to cover all the cucumbers, leaving about a 1/4 inch of head space and sealed each jar. I did not process these in a boiling water bath. I just let them cool over night and then stored the jars in my pantry.I was really pleased with my results. They are almost a Pickle Freak-bootleg version of McClure’s Pickles. They have a big vinegar taste and nice heat and are really pretty crunchy. My only complaint is they are a tad too salty for me and not “dilly” enough, so my next batch will be tweaked accordingly.

There’s still time to win your own Home Canning Kit so leave a comment on the post BELOW before August 12. And let me know on this post how your pickling projects have turned out this summer. I’m still looking for that perfect water, vinegar and salt ratio!

Twitt

>This CAN All Be Yours!

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>Y’all know how much I LOVE getting stuff in the mail but this time it’s YOUR CHANCE.

I’ve been asked to share with my fellow freaks the chance to win a free Home Canning Kit along with the much loved Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving by the nice canning freaks at Jarden Home Brands, makers of ANYTHING you need to can. I just went tonight to my favorite canning supply store, The Brooklyn Kitchen, and hauled home on the bus a case of their Ball wide mouth quart jars. At the store they had a display of the VERY prize up for grabs, and let me just say, I’M JEALOUS.

All YOU have to do is leave a comment and I’ll pick a winner by August 12. Tell me about your favorite thing to pickle, preferably, or just your favorite canning memory.

Twitt

>Crocked, Part II (The Bad News)

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>My crock pickles‘ 3 week fermentation process came to an end 2 weekends ago.

Once crock pickles are done, you have 2 options: you can either eat them straight out of the crock, after a quick rinse and store them in the fridge, or you can prepare them for long term refrigeration by canning them. I wanted to store mine in JARS, so I could potentially give them away as gifts, so I was prepared to go the few extra steps to can them.

I used tongs and grabbed each pickle and set them aside in a colander for rinsing. Then I took the brine left in the crock and strained it through a cheese cloth. Be careful not to set your cheesecloth on FIRE like I did (on a low burning stove eye that was on so I could sterilize my jars). The brine was light green and somewhat milky in appearance but from all my reading I knew that a cloudy appearance was to be expected and that if you find that troublesome you can make a new brine, bring that to a boil and use that instead. I wasn’t concerned about appearances, just taste…and I tasted my pickles and the brine…and wasn’t thrilled with the results.

I brought the brine to a boil anyway and was GOING to pour it over my hot sterilized jars, packed with the rinsed pickles, fresh dill and garlic, but it just didn’t seem RIGHT. It was like the boiling had intensified whatever was wrong…and the cloudiness of the brine now looked like Mississippi pond scum…I decided I should use a new batch of brine. I already had a full quart jar of brine left over from another pickling venture, so I brought that to a boil and finally poured it over my pickles.


After letting the pickles come to room temperature I put them in the fridge, hoping the vinegar and the cool would help them firm up a little. They were already really salty and pretty mushy. I wasn’t holding out much hope for them but I never give up on a pickle!

Well, that is until now…these are just not good. They look great in their jar and I could still give them as gifts…to people like Dick Cheney.

So the bad news is my first crock pickles failed, but the good news is, I can always try again. If anyone has any tips for me please let me know!

Twitt