Pickling Away

After picking up a dozen quart sized Kerr's jars I am full speed ahead with pickling these days.

My two most recent endeavors have once again come from the Lee Bros. Simple, Fresh, Southern cookbook.  I made the zucchini and onion pickles as well as their radish pickles recipe.

As I find myself getting into the swing of pickling I was able to crank out 4 jars, 2 of each recipe, quickly one weeknight after just a few hours.  The base of most of the Lee Bros. pickling recipes is 1 cup of white vinegar/white wine vinegar as well as some cloves of garlic, a tsp or so of whole black peppercorns, as well as a tsp or two of sugar and kosher salt.  In addition to the cup of vinegar you also add one cup of water.  On top of that, the Lee Bros. have various flavor kicks like some ground turmeric in the radish pickles.

After cutting your veggies 1/8 in. on the bias and stuffing them in the jar, you just throw all your other ingredients on the stove top, medium high heat until it simmers.  Take the pot off the stove top, pour it over your veggies stuffed in the quart, let everything rest until it reaches room temperature and put it in the fridge.  You are good to go in terms of eating the pickles after an hour, but they really get tasty after a solid 24 hours sitting in the fridge.  Per the Lee Bros. notes, the pickles will keep in the refrigerator for about two weeks, so keep them up front and snack on them a lot!

The colors of the veggies in the jar are beautiful.  I added in yellow squash to the zucchini and onion pickles (per Lee Bros. suggestion) to give it a fantastic color balance of green and yellow with the white onions.  The radishes are straight forward, but I love the jar of red radishes sitting next to the green and yellow jar.

Below, the two jars in the middle are sitting in the pickling liquid and the other two were about to be pickled shortly.  I thought the real winner in all of this was the pickled onion, nice tangy and crispy.  The biggest mistake I made was not putting more in as I leaned heavily on the squash and zucchini.  Pickle On!