Sour Pickle Recipe

Yum! I like pickles a lot! But i've found that the vinegar pickles i'm made in the past were just too vinegary and totally mush-fest.
I got the recipe for these pickles from Wild Fermentation, a super awesome book with a super helpful website, and author who will email you back with answers to your questions within hours! How cool is that?

Anyhoo - i gathered fresh produce from my garden:

• Small lemon cucumbers (a few a little too ripe and seedy, thus a little more mush factor than is generally considered ideal)
• Hot peppers
• dill
• Garlic

And procured some fresh grape leaves at The Natural Gardener. Add some seasonings i had on hand, some water and sea salt brine and voila: pickles! I struggled with the crock scenario - none of my receptacles seemed to have the right sized openings - but i performed my usual Miranda-scrimcoach and made it happen.

I used my large half gallon mason jar and stacked the grape leaves, garlic and peppers, seasonings and herbs followed by sliced cucumbers and topped with the brine (3 T sea salt per quart of distilled water). I then squished a pyrex lid into the narrow mouth of the mason jar and held it down with a vinegar bottle filled with water. Being Summer, fermentation happened pretty quick and turned over pickle results i was happy with in just one week. They're delicious and refreshing! And their flavor is much more multifaceted than plan old vinegar pickles. I repacked them into one quart container plus part of a pint and popped them in the fridge. They'll continue to ferment a tiny bit even in the fridge, but will stay pretty stable and keep quite a while.

There's tons of fermented brine leftover - i'll have to do SOMEthing with that.... i've heard you can drink it as a digestive tonic or use it as a soup stock. We'll see about that. Until then, we'll be enjoying our fresh pickles and relishing in summer's bounty (pun intended).

Wholesome Wednesdays: Cucumbers

I LOVE LOVE LOVE fresh cucumbers.

They might be one of my favorite things to snack on, and are definitely one of my favorite veggies to grow. They can be a little finicky - you have to keep them well watered, always a bit moist, and up off the hot ground. But if you treat 'em right, they are top producers of tasty, portable, summery veg. I can get a bit tired of cucumbers by the end of the season, cuz really = what can you really do with cucumbers other than snacking on them or adding them to salads?? A lot of things actually, these are some of the dishes/preparations i make with my cukes:

• Cucumber salad - cucumbers, balsalmic, olive oil, seasonings, and any other veggies you might want to throw in
• Tzaziki sauce - cucumbers with yogurt and seasonings
• Pickles, vinegar or fermented
• Cucumber buttermilk soup
• Cucumber tea sandwiches with cream cheese
• Gazpacho soup

One of my favorite cucumber snacks is actually as simple as slicing up the cuke, plating it, sprinkling on some salt, then drizzling all the slices with Sriracha sauce. Mmmmmmmmmm.

So, what's the big deal about cucumbers? They're not only edible: you see them listed in various beauty products and cleansers. Cucumbers are great diet foods: you can pile up a plate of cucumber slices and eat to your heart's content with zero guilt: they're 95% water! This website has some great information and recipes for cucumbers. Cukes are as good for the skin as they are on our tastebuds.

The World's Healthiest Foods website has some great things to say (as always) about our cucumber friends:

The flesh of cucumbers is primarily composed of water but also contains ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and caffeic acid, both of which help soothe skin irritations and reduce swelling. Cucumbers'hard skin is rich in fiber and contains a variety of beneficial minerals including silica, potassium and magnesium.

Cucumbers are a very good source of the vitamins C and the mineral molybdenum. They are also a good source of vitamin A, potassium, manganese, folate, dietary fiber and magnesium and contain the important mineral silica.  

The silica in cucumber is an essential component of healthy connective tissue, which includes muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and bone. Cucumber juice is often recommended as a source of silica to improve the complexion and health of the skin, plus cucumber's high water content makes it naturally hydrating—a must for glowing skin. Cucumbers are also used topically for various types of skin problems, including swelling under the eyes and sunburn.          -WHFoods.com

Cucumbers are a great source of fiber, can help reduce blood pressure, and are good for the skin - so why aren't you eating a cucumber right now???  Here's the nutritional breakdown:

And again - high in sugar. I'm starting to think all fruits/veggies are 'high in sugar.' I think 'high' must be relative.

Tomorrow i'll be posting some novel cucumber uses outside of the food/beauty realm. I received an interesting email a few weeks ago with all sorts of crazy sounding cucumber uses. I'll test them out and let you know what i find out: i'm all for utilizing my garden's produce to the best of its abilities!

What is your favorite thing to do with your cucumbers?

Soup for Summer: Cucumber/Buttermilk with Potato

Happy Solstice, everyone!

I just can't get enough cucumbers - but some other people would like to do more with them than just eat them sliced with salt or hot sauce. I guess that i'm one of those people on occasion. I made butter on Friday and had buttermilk leftover to use. My M.I.L. mentioned cucumber soup the other day - i'd never heard of such a thing, other than gazpacho.  I guessed that buttermilk and cucumbers would pair nicely, and indeed they did. Here's what i came up with:

• 1 potato with skin (may remove for lighter color and less texture), chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2+ cloves garlic, chopped (don't have to chop finely as all will be blended before serving)
• 2 lemon cucumbers - could use any variety of cucumber. You may wish to remove seeds.
• Buttermilk - i had about 3/4 of a pint - could use up to a pint or as little as 1 cup depending how much stock you use
• Turkey/Chicken/Vegetable stock - about one cup. I used frozen ice cubes
• Splash of white wine and water - only a very little wine or milk may separate.
• Dried oregano, cayenne, salt, pepper, turmeric
• Fresh lemon basil - one small bunch

Put potato, onion, garlic, dried herbs, stock, wine and water in a small pot and boil/simmer until potatoes are soft enough to poke the side of a fork through.
Blend cooked potato mixture, with liquid, in 2 or 3 batches in a blender - be careful not to overflow, and allow steam to escape to prevent explosion. In last batch add the chopped cucumbers and fresh basil. May sub mint for lemon basil, but i think mint is nasty. Add any more dried herbs and salt to taste.
Add buttermilk and stir all together. Place in fridge to chill. You may also serve this warm - it's good either way. And if you're feeling fancy add garnish of basil leaves, garlic chives or scallions.

Serves 4 servings of one large bowl each, 2 glutinous servings of 2 bowls each, or 8 servings as appetizers or side dishes.

Spontaneous Seed Purchase

I'm usually pretty focused in my seed and transplant planting. I research and choose the best varieties for my zone and menu. In the past i've stuffed as much as i possibly (shouldn't) could into my garden, and other years i've been more sparing.
This year, i started out sparing, and am becoming a little more crazed the nicer the weather gets!
We stopped into The Great Outdoors (local nursery on south Congress St.) yesterday to get some lemongrass for the back yard and ended up in the seed room. I picked up some Calendula (pot marigold) that apparently i should wait until fall to plant, but planted some seeds in a pot anyway, and some more cucumber seeds. Since reading a fellow blogger's post about miniature white cucumbers, i really wanted to try those. But alas have not seen them available anywhere. TGO had some neat Seed Savers Exchange seeds though, and I ended up picking these out:

Mexican Sour Gherkins

They're a strange heirloom variety: teeny tiny little cucumbers that taste almost pickled naturally. It was a debate between those, Crystal Apple (a sweet type cucumber) or Poona Kherra (a strange looking indian cucumber that had no flavor description). Since i'm already growing lemon cukes, i thought i'd skip the apple cukes and chose this strange Gherkins, that apparently aren't even cucumbers! Whoops. They're strange cucumber cousins, and won't cross pollinate: so the nice thing is i'll be able to save the seeds of the two different kinds of 'cucumbers' without worrying about hybridization wierdness. So if nothing else, these little guys should be fun in a salad: maybe a tossed salad with fresh corn, halved tiny sour cukes, black beans and oil and vinegar.

My lemon cukes have already germinated, and i have dreams of fermenting pickles and fresh cucumber sandwiches dancing in my head. I sure love watching plants spring to life. It brings me almost enough joy to get over the feeling of crappy that i feel after indulging in Easter chocolates.