Pickled Vegetables

This past week, between being out of town for several days and work, there has not been a lot of time to cook. I’ll leave you with a picture and short description of the pickled vegetables I made using Virginia Willis’ recipe in her posting about the heartland (mentioned in my corn round-up a few weeks back). It’s so easy to make pickled veggies in the fridge! If you have not tried it, and you love pickles, you should preserve some of summer’s bounty while you still can. We’ve eaten them as a side with sausage and I’m looking forward to snacking on them in the weeks to come.

I followed the directions with a couple of changes:

• Used the following vegetables that were on hand: 1 white onion, 3 medium pickle type cucumbers, 6 wax peppers cut in large chunks but not seeded, 3 bell peppers – red, orange and yellow – seeded and cut in large chunks, 1/2 head cauliflower florets, a large handful of okra, and 1 carrot.   The cauliflower and carrots were blanched and cooled in ice water prior to pickling.
• Added about 1.5 cups of water heated to just under a boil along with the other liquid ingredients in order to fill the gallon jar completely.
• Sweetened with a sugar substitute (blend of erythritol, sucralose and ace-K). See my notes in the Ingredients and Resources page about sweetener options.
• Omitted the red onion, although it would have made the pickles more vibrant: I have a friend who is allergic and if I want to share the pickles, no red onion allowed.
• No hot peppers either: We love them, just didn’t have any handy at the moment I was pickling. (And yes Neighbor – I should have just come over and picked some, I know. It would have been in the dark with a flashlight. Next time.)

Next up: I want to try some actual canning again since its been years since I put up dill pickles and dilly beans. Let me know if you want to can along with me in the coming weeks.