Pickles. YOUR ideas and recipies.

[Ascholten]

Ok, Ill try to keep this simple.
(Me and simple. oh yah like that EVER happens )

I have 'mouse cucumbers' basically it's a vine that well, as I learned.... crawls EVERYWHERE, and poops out a ton of tiny cucumbers! Yes they ARE cucumbers and about the size of a jelly bean. They are everywhere. This sob even figured out a way to creep into the crack in my window in the bedroom, grew along the ceiling, (YES I did see it, thought it was cute and wanted to see how far THIS invasion would go !! ) I got cukes everywhere! constantly !!!

Ok, the quick and dirty.

Let's hear some of YOUR recipes for making pickles.
I went on the internet and did a 'make pickles recipie' search.
You can imagine the results
Please share YOUR recipies for Pickles.

One thing that I will call a point of contention. Some say to boil the mix before throwing it onto the veggies to get it to penetrate. Others just throw it in and let it set in the fridge...
YOUR thoughts on that?

All' Ya' All Chicken Picklers out there !! Lemme have it !!!
Please share your pickling Cucumber recipies.

If you do something special or different with them, PLEASE share with us, why, so we can all learn from your decades of knowledge.

Thank you

Aaron

 

[TooCheep]

I think you are describing the "mouse melon" or "mexican sour gherkin". I've never pickled that particular cucumber, but the following refrigerator dill pickle recipe consistently gets excellent reviews. It likely would work well with them.

Refrigerator Dill Pickles​

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp kosher salt
• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 cup fresh dill weed
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 3-6 cucumbers depending on size
• (option #1- regular dill pickles)
  • 1 tbsp black peppercorns
• (option #2- spicy dill pickles)
  • 1/2 tbsp black peppercorns
  • 1 tsp red pepper flakes

Directions:

1. Clean and slice cucumbers into wedges.
2. Sterilize 1qt mason jar.
3. Put salt, peppercorns/red pepper flakes, coriander seeds, garlic and dill in jar.
4. Pack cucumber wedges into jar tightly, leaving 1/2" headspace. Trim if too long.
5. Pour in vinegar, then fill jar to 1/4" headspace with water.
6. Cover with lid & ring and shake for one minute.
7. Refrigerate for six days, shaking daily. Keeps for 4-6 weeks.

Notes:

• Makes: 1qt jar
• Source: https://www.homesicktexan.com/2007/07/with-patience-comes-pickles.html

 

[Ascholten]

I think you are describing the "mouse melon" or "mexican sour gherkin".

YES, that is exactly it !! TBH if I knew this thing would turn out to be so invasive, Id have planted it wayyyy over in the OTHER corner of my yard, yeesh !! no it's not a bad thing so far, but it WILL cover a wall, and potentially cover over any other plants you have, smothering them out !! So if you either intentionally or by mistake got them growing somewhere, you will NEED to keep a very tight eye on them, like ever few days tight eye and cull them when they come up or your native plants might suffer.

I thought I got a 'nice gift' when he gave these to me, but never did I expect them to go wild like they did !!

In the neutral zone right now whether they are a good or bad plant, I do get a lot of little cukies to eat and they ARE yummy, but INVASIVE is the new word for the day with them !!

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

your recipe says keeps for 4 to 6 weeks.

what if I wanted to pickle them to last thru to next season, ie MONTHS, or possibly even YEARS on the shelf, like canning.... what would I change? add more vinegar or what?

and thank you for that recipe,looks good I am definitely going to try it. I already have the garlic here from some of my own plants I grew !!

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

your recipe says keeps for 4 to 6 weeks.

what if I wanted to pickle them to last thru to next season, ie MONTHS, or possibly even YEARS on the shelf, like canning.... what would I change? add more vinegar or what?

and thank you for that recipe,looks good I am definitely going to try it. I already have the garlic here from some of my own plants I grew !!

Aaron

Ok, another ? I see ZERO water added in your recipe. so I am to fill the jar to the required level with just the vinegar mixture here?

Yes I KNOW this is blatant stuff that any moron should know, but consider me a SPECIAL moron, who needs things pointed out to him so there is absolutely NO room for screw ups.

I have not really canned much before and I'd like this to be as complete as possible, so that other people like me who may totally clueless, can get what they need

Thank you.
aaron

 

[TooCheep]

@Ascholten - The recipe does use water (step #5). I'm afraid I only have a good refrigerator dill recipe. I'm still looking for a good long-term dill recipe that doesn't use sugar.

Refrigerator pickling is much more foregiving than long-term pickling. If you want long term (understandable), then be sure to do some reading on proper canning technique. It isn't hard, but is critical to avoid botulism. That isn't really a concern with refrigerator pickles.

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

I wanna know what yall use.to make them CRISP!? We prefer a crunchy crisp pickle...and Mrs. Wages bag for making pickles did not turn out crisp at all...they were all mushy!

 

[Paz]

We have a simple one:
Take one tea spoon of salt for every cup of water. Put small cucumbers in a jar, add salter water, add tons of garlic cloves, a few spicy peppers, a lemon or two cut to quarters, and a handful of Shamir.
Then cover with a plastic wrap on the water line! And then cover with the jar’s cover. You basically leave that for a couple of weeks in the fridge.
THE END
*You don’t have to add spicy peppers if you hate them.
**shamir is this herb that smells nice and people put in their salads, it has pointy leaves, like a pine tree leaves, but soft…

 

[Ascholten]

I see it now TooCHeep.
so even though I pickle the hell out of it, vinegar like crazy to squinch this pickle gizzard dry.. it can still botulism - ize? ugh that's not good !!

you said you are looking for a recipe that does not use sugar? can you expound please? In your opinion, why not sugar? what do you find wrong with it, and yes I totally understand this is entirely your opinion and I fully respect that. Hence, the purpose of this thread, so we can share our OPINIONS on stuff that works, didn't work so well for me etc. at the end of the day, hopefully we ALL are a bit smarter for it !

One idea that kind of popped into my mind is, as you said, go ahead and pickle the thing, ant LET IT SIT the 8 weeks or so. Now you KNOW that booger is fully pickled, the gizzard juice has seeped all thru it and it's as pickle puckery as it's gonna git !!!

Take this thing and freeze dry it. No worry of botulism, you cooked all the water out of it and nothing can grow now !! Then when it comes time to re hydrate it, curious which will taste better just straight shot of water, or a slight water / vinegar blend. I would like to keep it easy and just do water since that's all you really took out of it.

This is going to be a project in progress here.

Aaron

 

[TooCheep]

I see it now TooCHeep.
so even though I pickle the hell out of it, vinegar like crazy to squinch this pickle gizzard dry.. it can still botulism - ize? ugh that's not good !!

you said you are looking for a recipe that does not use sugar? can you expound please? In your opinion, why not sugar? what do you find wrong with it, and yes I totally understand this is entirely your opinion and I fully respect that. Hence, the purpose of this thread, so we can share our OPINIONS on stuff that works, didn't work so well for me etc. at the end of the day, hopefully we ALL are a bit smarter for it !

Botulism is no joke. It will kill you dead.

Home canners have known for many decades that proper preparation of food (usually in mason jars) needs to follow a specific process to kill the botulism spores that are all around us and love to grow in wet airless environments. Commercially canned food companies know how to prepare their cans/jars to avoid this problem on a repeatable basis. Home canners also need to know the proper procedure as well.

There is one easy way to know if your canning process failed. Botulism creates gas as a by-product. If your (commercial or home) can is bulging and/or if gas escapes when you open it, throw it out. Don't take the chance.

I don't want to scare you off of home canning. Botulism really isn't a problem if you do the process correctly and is easy to identify if things go wrong.

-----

Why no sugar? Just a personal preference thing. I like Kosher and Polish dill-type pickles. Others like sweet pickles. My first year, I was stupid and followed a recipe that used sugar and didn't like the results. I gave all those jars away. This year, I wasn't very impressed with the results and will try another recipe next year until I find one I like.

So, at this point I can only recommend my refrigerator dill pickle recipe. It consistently gets high marks and I'm happy to pass it along. I use that process for pickles that I expect to consume within 2 months at most. When I find a good dill pickle recipe using proper canning technique that will allow for longer-term pickles, I'll be happy to share that as well.