This week has been insanely busy, but I've been wanting to make spicy sauerkraut and pickled basil green beans since a week and a half ago. I just got two new preserving books: The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I'm not sure anyone ever needs more than these two books for food preserving. They are both amazing!
Mike's pretty sure no one needs a whole book about pickles, but I'm sure that it will enhance my quality of preserving and, therefore, life. So there. Really- you should get these books.
I've made 3 recipes from The Joy of Pickling in the past 2 days!
Locally grown cabbage was under a dollar per pound at the Co-op this week, so it was time to make some kraut. But I also wanted to make kimchi. So I compromised with the Kimchi Kraut on page 189. Spicy, garlicky, gingery...It'll be awesome in 2 weeks!
(The plastic bags are filled with brine and work to contain the cabbage under the brine.)Tonight I really needed to use up about 2 lbs of pickling cukes from the garden. Most pickle recipes call for large quantities of cucumbers, but the Really Quick Dill Pickles on page 86 gives quantities for pickles by the quart. I did 1 quart and 2 pints. These truly are quick- so quick that I decided to keep the canner boiling and pickle some green beans, too!
The Basil Beans on page 114 called out to me. I LOVE dilly beans, but want to branch out so that I don't end up hating them after canning a gazillion jars. Basil beans are basically the same, but with basil instead of dill. There's certainly no shortage of basil in the garden, so this recipe is perfect for tonight! Now we'll see how long I can wait before trying these...
4 comments:
Looks awesome!
Yum delicious! I love all pickled things. :)
Okay, I've been staring at the picture of what I assume are the cucumber pickles because it looks like there is a finger in the jar! What is that? The beans and pickles look great, but...I can't seem to figure out what it is!
Erin- It's good luck to can one of your fingers with every batch of pickles, didn't you know?
Just kidding- it's a purple cayenne chile that ended up losing most of its color during processing. So now it looks pinkish and very finger-like!
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