It's in the can...er, eh...JAR!

Ok we got this baby wrapped up.  Special thanks this round to my favorite assistant, Mr. Tony Donley!

Isn't he handsome?!

So our experiment went well.  We decided to do three varieties of pickles.  Hot, Garlic and Dill.  Then for each variety we did two catergories

Hot and Super Hot

These guys are gonna be freakin hot!  The Super Hots have chopped dry red chilies with the seeds, whole dry red chilies, halved jalapenos with the seeds, red pepper flakes and black peppercorn.  The Hots have a tamer version of the same ingredients.

Dry Red Chilies 

Dill and Super Dill

Fresh Dill

Now all of the varieties have dill in them, we just made these with dill as the main ingredient.  As part of the experiement the Super Dills have 12 sprigs of dill in them and and the regular Dill have 8 sprigs.  All of the other flavors have 4 sprigs of dill in with all the other ingredients.

Garlic and Super Garlic

The Super Garlics have 8 cloves of fresh garlic, chopped garlic from a jar and garlic salt.  The regular Garlic have 4 cloves and chopped garlic only.  All the other flavors have garlic in them as well, but only 2 cloves per jar.

All in all we ended up filling 9 jars.  We had enough cucumbers to fill two more jars, so I just kind of made something up for them.  We were out of fresh garlic so I used the chopped garlic, some celery seeds, and all the other spices.  We also added green onions and fresh green beans to each jar.

I also had one extra jar and no more pickles left so I decided to pickle an Heirloom Tomato.  I took out the stem and core and chopped it in 1/8.  Who knows how that one is going to turn out.

I'm super excited to taste them in a month!  The official jar opening will be on Friday September 17th!!!  Be there or be square!!!

Round two begins!

First off I want to thank all my new followers!!!!!! Thanks for checking me out all you crazy Cats and Kittens!!!

I'm starting my second round of pickles today. We hit the farmer's market on La Cienega and 18th. It starts at 2pm so when we arrived shortly after 2 all of the booths were not set up yet, but we did get first pick from the guys who were open. Today we got 6 lbs of Pickling Cucumbers, some more dill, jalapenos some string beans and green onions.

My jars post sterilization

I'm gonna make 6 jars and try something different in each one. Hot ones, garlic ones, some control ones, ALL KINDS!!!!!

Right now I've got all the cucumbers in the ice bath. I bought a bag of ice this time and I'm letting them soak for 4 hours. I'm also sterilizing all the jars now.

6 lbs of cucumbers chillin'

Then it's into the 12 hour brine and in the afternoon tomorrow I'll cook up the vinegar boil and I'm going to add a bag of pickling spices to that. Coriander, mustard seed, cloves, black peppercorns, bay leaves, tarragon and dill. I'll put all of that in a cheesecloth bag to flavor the vinegar.

I got these spices on the cheap at the Elat Market on Pico

Letting the spices meld overnight in an air-tight jar

Added bonus...when we were at Target the other day they had canning sets on clearance so I got a new pot and all the tools to make the job easier for $20!!!

Alright, gonna go cut off the blossom ends and get these guys to bed in their salt bath!

Refridgerator pickles

Today is the day! We're about to open the jar of pickles in the fridge! They've been in there for a week. I was hoping that we would get an idea for how they would taste.

Turns out they weren't hot at all. When I sliced the jalapenos they were so hot that I left the seeds out when I put them in the jar.  Next time I'll leave the seeds in, that should bump it up a notch.

Smells good

They were also not very crispy.  Some were, some weren't.  Next round I want to do a better ice bath.  I'll buy a bag of ice and do it for 4 hours instead of only 2.  I still haven't been able to find fresh grape leaves.  The search continues.

I think I will also wait to cut the cucumbers till after the 10 hour brine bath.  I'll cut them right before I put them in the jar.  I think that might assist the crispness. 

Pickles and Open-Face Heirloom Tomato Sandwiches for lunch

Over all the flavor I got from these pickles was vinegar.  I tasted a little dill but not enough.  I want more flavor in my pickles so next time I'll try adding more garlic and spices.  I want to avoid using the packets of dill pickle flavoring, but I may use it as a reference for more spices I can add to make the pickles more flavorful.  I'm also going to use Pickling Dill instead of Baby Dill.  I think that will make a big difference. 

Tomorrow is the farmer's market, so we'll go and try again with a small batch.  I still have a jar in the closet that we will open the day before my birthday.  Hopefully those will have some more flavor than the ones that were only marinated for a week. 

Overall however...I made Pickles!!!!!  So that is a success.  Now I just have to find the right mix of spices to make these pickles MY pickles.

Wish me luck!  Round 2 begins tomorrow!!!

And now we wait

I woke up bright and early at 7am to finish up my first batch.  After I drained the brine off the cucumbers, I set the vinegar/salt/sugar/water mixture on the stove to boil.  While I waited for that to happen I prepped the jars.  I'm making a spicy recipe this time, and it called for jalapenos.  I got some from the Culver City Farmers market and let me tell you what those things are hot.  You know how when you wake up first thing in the morning and your eyes are kind of dried out and sensitive.  Now imagine jalapeno fumes wafting into them.  It was brutal.  I started coughing and had to leave the kitchen!  So I decided to only use one jalapeno between the two jars instead of a whole jalapeno per jar.

I'm also using baby dill instead of pickling dill.  That was all they had at the store and I forgot to pick some up at the Farmer's Market.  I think it will be a little more delicate of a flavor, but should still be great.  I used a little more than the recipe called for, 4 heads instead of two to make up for the delicate nature of the Baby Dill.

I also decided to add onion to the mix.  I just love onion so I think they will taste good pickled and add great flavor to the pickles.  I used a giant red onion and cut them into long skinny slices.

Many recipes tell you to place a fresh grape leaf in the bottom of your jar.  It's supposed to assist with keeping the pickles crisp.  I could not find any fresh grape leaves, but I could find them brined in a jar.  I decided to try that and see how it goes.  Plus I think it looks nice on the bottom of the jar :)

The last two ingredients are Whole Mustard Seed and Whole Garlic Cloves.  I threw all that in the jars and then packed in as many cucumbers as I could in each one.  I placed the lids on and then got my pot ready to process the jars.

Processing is the step that makes sure everything is clean, and bacteria free.  I let them sit in the boiling water for 15 minutes.

Now they are ready to soak up all that salty, vinegary goodness.  I'm going to try a little experiment.  I'm putting one jar in the fridge for a week and leaving the other jar out for 3-4 weeks.  I want to see if the fridge speeds things up to the same result or if its better to just let them sit in a cool dark place (most likely my bedroom closet).

so here we go!  can't wait to see how they taste, what we need to change to make them taste better and how crispy/not crispy they are!

ack!  I can't wait!!!

Today's Work in Photography

all the ingredients

Pickles on the Rocks

spears

 

No Blossoms

First Attempt

Today I started on two recipes that I am combining to make one.   I'm making a small batch to start.  Usually it would be 8lbs of pickles, but I'm only doing 2lbs.
So here's what I've done so far:

2lbs cucumbers for pickling from the Culver City Farmer's market.  The selection was slim but I tried to pick the greenest, bumpiest ones I could find. 

First I let those soak in an ice water bath for two hours.  While I was waiting for those to chill, I sterilized my jars and lids.  Which is easier than it sounds.  You just dunk them in boiling water, let them sit in their little jacuzzi for 10 min, then remove them and...Viola!  Sterile.

I removed the cucumbers from the water and cut off the blossom end.  On mine an easy way to tell which end was the blossom end (if the stem was already detached) I looked for the browner end.  Then I actually decided to cut both ends off and quarter them.  Game time decision.

The next step is to soak the cucumbers in a brine which is just salt dissolved in water.  I used a reduced amount of brine than both my recipes called for since I was only using a 1/4 of the cucumbers.  The concoction I came up with was 8-10 cups water and a little less than a 1/4 cup of sea salt.  Oh yeah.  I'm using coarse sea salt that has been cleaned, which so far as I can tell is exactly the same as Kosher Salt, minus the Rabbi blessing :) Not that there's anything wrong with that.  I heated the water slightly to dissolve the salt, not to a boil, just enough to help the process along.  Don't know if that was necessary or not.

As of right now I've got all those little darlings in the bottom of my giant stainless steel stock pot, in the brine with a ceramic dish (placed upside down) on top of them.  All the recipes I read said it was very important to use stainless steel or aluminum or ceramic pots because other materials (such as copper, brass or iron) can have a bad chemical reaction.  Now it's a 12 hour wait to get those puppies ready for the next step.

I'm gonna have to get up at 7 am to start the next process.  Can't say I'm looking forward to that, but the sooner I get them in the jar, the sooner I'll be eating them!

Pickles!

Every since I was a kid I've loved pickles.  It was one of my first words.  "Pick-wee"  Mom thought it was cute, and my love of pickles started right then and there.  In the last year or so I've been making Hot Pickles at home from a guessed recipe from this old Russian Deli in Topeka, KS.  It's a simple recipe, I don't even have to pickle cucumbers, I just add ingredients to store bought Dills.  I've had it in mind to make my own from scratch for over a year, I just didn't know how to do it.  So after a weekend of online research and a trip to the local farmers market I'm ready to begin.  It's a long process and I'm excited to see how my first batch will turn out. 
My goal with this blog is to keep myself on track as far as remembering procedures, ingredients, and the like.  I also would love to get good enough at making pickles that I could make a small business out of it.  Selling at Farmer's Markets in the area and such.  I think it would be a fun hobby that could turn into a successful business.  Who knows?  Maybe someday you'll be buying a jar of my pickles right off the grocery store shelf! 
So here goes!  Wish me Luck!