Pickles Part 2

I canned a bunch of dill pickles a few of days ago.  It went well- I’m getting more comfortable and confident with my canning abilities.  However, I’m really worried about my pickles.  Mostly I’m worried that they are going to be mushy.  I did add some Pickle Crisp- we’ll see if it did its job of keeping the pickles crisp.

I bought about 14 pounds of pickling cucumbers a farmer’s market.  The cucumbers that I’m growing in my garden aren’t the best for making pickles and I don’t have enough cucumbers from my garden to can a batch of pickles.

I got an awesome book on canning for the library- Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.  This book is filled with 400 recipes for canning just about everything.  So, I followed their recipe for dill pickles.

Here’s the basic pickle canning process:

Step 1: Clean the cucumbers.  Slice off a little slice from each end of the cucumbers.  Soak them overnight in some salt water.

Step 2: Prepare the canner.  Sterilize the jars and jar lids.  

the canner

Step 3:  Mix up the vinegar solution- vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and pickling spice.  Heat it and simmer for 15 minutes.

Step 4: Fill the jars with chopped garlic, dill, and pickles.  Pour the vinegar solution over the cucumbers.  Put the lids on the jars.

Step 5: Put the jars in the canner and process for 15 minutes.

Step 6:  Remove the jars and let them cool.

I ended up with 12 jars of pickles, each with about 4 or 5 good-sized pickles.  They look like pickles should look.  I’m going to let them sit for a few weeks at least so they can soak in all the flavor of the vinegar and pickling spice.  Then I’m going to open up a jar and hope that they are the most delicious crisp pickles I have ever eaten.  I’ll let you know.   

Pickles!!!

I love pickles (specifically dill pickles, not sweet pickles). I love to eat them as a snack, on a sandwich, on a veggie burger, on the side, or any other way I can manage.

So I decided to try to make my own pickles.

I thought I would keep it simple and start with refrigerator pickles rather than actually canning pickles. I scoured the internet and looked at a bunch of different recipes and eventually settled on trying this one.

Recipe:
3 cups distilled white vinegar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tbsp kosher salt

1 tbsp of pickling spice (or 1 tsp each of mustard, coriander, and dill seeds)

2 cups hot water

2 pounds pickling cucumbers, sliced 1/4-inch thick

1 bunch of chopped fresh dill

3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

Combine your vinegar, sugar, salt, and pickling spice in a large bowl. Pour the hot water over the vinegar mixture, and mix until the sugar is dissolved. Cool to room temperature.
Chop your cucumbers into ¼ inch slices, and divide them into jars (mine fit perfectly into 3 quart size jars). Chop the dill and the garlic, and divide it evenly between your jars.
Pour the cooled brine over the cucumbers. If the brine doesn’t quite cover the cucumbers, add more water/vinegar mixture (I just mixed 1 part water to 1 part vinegar).
Place the jars in the fridge overnight.
They’re ready to eat after 24 hours, and will keep in the fridge for 2 weeks.


I don’t often follow recipes exactly- I like to make changes that make the recipe simpler and I make changes based on what I think will taste better. So here’s what I did differently: I skipped the pickling spice because I didn’t have any and I wasn’t sold on the idea that I would even like it. I used pickling salt instead of kosher salt. I added some thinly sliced onion along with the dill and garlic.

the cukes.

the jars.

I sliced some of the cucumbers in lengthwise slices, some in quarters, and some in circle slices. I made 2 jars- a ½ gallon jar and a quart jar.

cukes all cut up ready for the brine

I put them in the fridge and let them sit for a week. And then I started eating them. They are pretty good. They taste more like tangy cucumbers than pickles though. Or maybe I’m just so used to commercially produced pickles and the ones I made are what pickles are supposed to taste like. I think if I were to make these again I would make a few changes: add more garlic and finely chop it (I really can’t taste the garlic at all and I love garlic), and not chop the dill (the little pieces of dill are floating at the top of the jar and I think it would be better to just put the pieces of dill in there without chopping it). For my first attempt at pickle making, I think it went pretty well.

My next adventure in pickle making was making pickles and canning them so I can enjoy them all winter long.  That story will be my next post...

Cucumbers!

I enjoy cucumbers.  I obviously wouldn’t grow them if I didn’t like them.  If you grow cucumbers, you have to know how to be creative in order to use them (or you have to have friends and neighbors that you can give cucumbers to),  because there always seems to be lots and lots of cucumbers. 

So, here I would like to share all the things that I have done with cucumbers so you too may enjoy cucumbers

I started out just eating the cucumbers cut up on salads.  Then I put cucumber slices on sandwiches with other veggies. 

Then I made a cucumber salad. 

To make the cucumber salad, slice up a cucumber along with about ½ cup of sliced onion.  In into the cucumber and onion about ¼ cup each of mayo and sour cream.  Add a little salt and pepper to taste and some dried or fresh dill.

Then I made taziki sauce.  

This one is a little more complex, but I have made it quite often so it is becoming easier.  Buy a big container (32 ounces, I think) of plain yogurt.  Take a colander and line in with a coffee filter.  Dump the yogurt into the coffee filter lined colander with a bowl underneath.  Liquid will drip out of the yogurt- let it drain over night or for a while.  Now the yogurt is thicker.  Add to the yogurt a shredded cucumber, ½ cup finely chopped onion, 2-3 cloves minced garlic, fresh or dried dill, and salt and pepper to taste.  You can use this as a dip with pita chips or pita bread.  Put some on a sandwich or in a pita or wrap.

I sliced up half a cucumber and sprinkled some salt and lemon juice on the slices.  It might sound a little strange, but it is a very tasty and refreshing cucumber creation.

Then I made pickles, which is going to have to be a post all by itself.

Garden Update- the good, the bad, and the ugly

I think I’m done writing about El Salvador for a while. There are a couple other posts that I’m working on related to El Salvador, but I want to think and reflect on them some more before I post them. So, I will now return to posting random posts about my everyday, less exciting yet good life back in the US.  Mostly I'm going to post about the fruits of my vegetable garden and what I'm doing with those fruits.

So, my vegetable garden hasn't done as well as I would have hoped.  I'm going to blame it on the fact this was my first year growing plants from seeds, a late spring, really hot dry weather, and a lack of proper care while I was away in El Salvador.  

The good: The cucumbers have done well- I've picked at least 15 and there will be probably about 6-10 more.  The jalapenos are doing excellent- lots and lots of pleasantly spicy peppers.

Look at all those nice jalapenos!

cucumbers!

this poor cucumber is oddly shaped because it decided to grow through the trellis fence 

The bad: Tomatoes.  The cherry tomato plant I planted did ok.  I've picked about 20 little tomatoes and they are really yummy, and there are still some more green ones growing, but there should have been so many more.  The regular tomatoes have made me very sad.  The plants grew very slowly to start with.  I started growing them inside, but I started too late.  I thought they would grow really quickly when I put them outside in the nice soil, but they didn't.  I eventually bought some organic fertilizer to give them.  When I got back from El Salvador the plants were huge and I was really excited.  But I didn't see one single tomato on them.  About a week later there were finally some little green tomatoes on the plants, and now there are more little green tomatoes.  I don't know if they will grow to a decent size or if they will have time to get ripe before it gets too cold.  We'll see...

A couple almost ripe cherry tomatoes

the pathetic little green tomatoes

the tomato plants look good, but there just aren't any tomatoes

The ugly: I had planted some cilantro in a couple of pots, and they clearly did not get watered and they were very dead when I got home from El Salvador.  And the broccoli plants grew and grew, but no heads of broccoli ever formed.  I guess broccoli likes cool weather so I think I planted them too late and it got really hot too soon in the summer.  I just pulled the broccoli plants out of the ground and planted some cilantro where the broccoli had been. 

A nice surprise: Acorn squash!!!  I didn't plant acorn squash, but when I got home from El Salvador I found 2 acorn squashes growing amongst the cucumbers.  I'm not sure how the acorn squash grew- maybe there was a seed mix up at the seed factory (but I'm pretty sure that all the seeds I planted looked like cucumber seeds) or maybe a bird stole a seed from somewhere and brought it to my garden or maybe there was a seed in some compost I used.  Or maybe it was a miracle.

Walmart in El Salvador

I don’t like Walmart.  In fact I very strongly dislike Walmart.  For a lot of reasons.  Walmart puts small local businesses out of business.  They underpay and mistreat their employees, some of this mistreatment could even be considered abuse.  The vast majority of Walmart’s products are made in factories with very questionable labor practices.  Walmart promotes the idea that you will live better if you shop at Walmart simply because you’ll be able to buy more “stuff” for a low price.  You won’t live better if you have more “stuff”, and the people who made that stuff you buy won’t live better because they have to pay the true cost of producing that “cheap” stuff.  These problems certainly aren’t limited to Walmart- there are plenty other companies out there with similar problems.  Walmart just takes things to the extreme.  If you want to earn more about why you too should dislike Walmart, there is a pretty good documentary out there called Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.

So when I saw that Walmart had finally made it’s way to El Salvador it made me sad.  (Technically Walmart has been in El Salvador for about 5 years- it was just operating stores under different names.  Now Walmart has opened an actual Walmart store like ones in the States).  There were signs and advertising for Walmart all over the place in San Salvador.  

"Walmart has arrived.  Low prices, everyday."  There were billboards like this one all over the place.

There it is.  We drove past it a few times.

El Salvador already had enough problems without Walmart, that’s just one more thing that will make life more difficult in El Salvador.  Walmart will provide some jobs to Salvadorans, but the poorest of the poor- those who really need the jobs- won’t get the jobs.  I can’t say this as a fact, but my best educated guess is that most Salvadorans will not be able to afford to shop at Walmart- even with the “low prices”.  Walmart will put the little local stores out of business.  This just isn’t at all what El Salvador needs.

Here’s a blog post about Walmart in El Salvador (and this blog, What’s Up El Salvador, has quite a few interesting posts).

Estoy Aquí

There are these billboards all around San Salvador that I saw almost every day while I was there.  It’s a message from God: “Estoy aquí.”  I’m here.  On the bottom of the billboard it says “God is everywhere.  Talk to him.” and “God is looking for you.  Let him find you.”  I really like these billboards- they are comforting and challenging at the same time.  It made me think about God and my relationship with God, but more specifically it made me think about my spirituality in El Salvador.

Here's one of the billboards- sorry about the tree that jumped into my picture

Estoy aquí

It is reassuring to know that God is here, God is everywhere.  This is something that I need to be reminded about all the time.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the moment, to think only about what is physically evident, to think only about myself and my problems.  But specifically it’s so nice to be reminded that God is indeed in El Salvador.  Some might say that God is not there- with all the poverty, hunger, violence, and death- that God could not possibly be present in such a horrible place.  Surely God would do something to make El Salvador better if God was there or surely God would not want to exist in such a horrible place.  But in reality, God is so very present in El Salvador.  I have written about this before and I still find it so striking and wonderful that I can find God so easily in El Salvador.  God is present in El Salvador- he is present in the poverty, hunger, violence, and death.  God suffers with the Salvadorans.  God has not nor will God ever forsake or give up on the Salvadorans.  And the Salvadorans know this.  It’s just about the only thing they can depend on and put their trust in.  God is one of the few things Salvadorans can find comfort in.

God is looking for you

I love this.  It is true.  But it is difficult to comprehend and accept.  Why would God be looking for me?  What have I don’t to merit God’s attention (especially God’s positive attention)?  How could God possibly seek me out among the 6 billion other people in the world?  Why would God spend time thinking about me and make an effort to seek me out?  I feel so unworthy and yet this is exactly the point.  I am completely unworthy of the attention and love that God shows to me, and yet God seeks me out anyways because God loves me.  God’s grace is stronger than any of us could imagine and so God seeks me out and God seeks out you and every single other person.  It doesn’t really make sense but that’s the way it is.

Let him find you

This may be my favorite part of these billboards.  But it is also the part that is most challenging.  It might seem that it is an easy thing, a passive thing to do, but in my mind letting God find me is something active and very difficult.

Playing hide-and-seek with little kids can be fun, but when the kids are really little you can’t play the game as you would with older kids.  When you are seeking you have to pretend for a little while that you can’t find the kids even though you can clearly see a large part of their body and you can hear them giggling or laughing.  And when it’s your turn to hide, you have to let them find you.  This might mean hiding in an obvious place or where they can see part of you.  You can also make noises if this first tactic doesn’t work. 

Letting God find you is a little like this.  It might seem easier to hide where the kids can’t find you and then you can just sit in the hiding place all day and you don’t have to deal with the antics of the kids.  Likewise it might seem easier to “hide” where we think God won’t find us.  But in reality this would be futile because God had much better seeking abilities than a 4 year old.  It would be futile, but more importantly “hiding” from God would be denying myself so much- love, forgiveness, grace, truth, and peace.

Talk to Him.

I guess it all comes down to this then.  All the other parts of the billboard- God is here, God is looking for you, and let God find you- depend on talking with God.  It depends on having the conversations and the relationship with God.  Understanding that God is present would not be possible without listening and hearing God speaking in my life.  If I didn’t talk and listen to God I wouldn’t realize that God so actively seeks me out.  And if I didn’t talk with God I wouldn’t be able to let God know that I was going to let him find me.

Fireworks Salvadoran Style

One night we went to the celebration of the 153^rd birthday of a town called Suchitoto.  People gathered in the town square for the celebrations.  The main square in Suchitoto is a charming place- a beautiful white colonial church on one side of the square with restaurants and little shops on the other three sides.  In the center of the square there is a little fountain, some nice trees, and benches where people rest or gather with friends.  The celebration started with some music and then some speeches by some important people in the town.  There was a big marching band that played a few songs.   They lit up the church with lights that changed colors every minute or two, which was really pretty.  All quite lovely.

And then without warning, fireworks started going off.  These were big, serious fireworks.  And they were being set off right there in the square- maybe about 100 feet away from me.  They probably weren’t the best quality big fireworks (or maybe it was lack of skill on the launcher’s part), so some didn’t quite launch going straight up.  A few veered off toward the marching band, some toward the crowd.  Ash and sparks from the fireworks came down and landed on people in the square.  People all over were brushing off their heads.  And the fireworks were very loud (I know fireworks usually are loud, but since they were so close they seemed even louder)! 

For the Salvadorans at this celebration this was normal.  This is apparently how Salvadorans do fireworks.  But for me and my American friends, this was anything but normal.  In fact it was quite terrifying.  When the fireworks started we immediately retreated farther away from where the fireworks were being set off, but most of the Salvadorans stayed where they were and calmly watched the fireworks.  Besides worrying about my own life and the safety of all the other people there, I was terrified that the historic WOODEN church was going to catch on fire.  This is a beautiful church that has survived some pretty big earthquakes, but I was pretty sure that this church was going to be destroyed by fireworks.

And then there was the torito pinto that came out while the fireworks were still being set off.  It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on, but we figured out there was a young man running around carrying a metal cow over his head.  A whole bunch of fireworks had been attached to the metal cow and the fireworks went off from the cow randomly.  These weren’t just little sparklers, these were some serious fireworks that were being shot off…sometimes towards the people standing around watching.   The poor person running around with the torito pinto ran into a tree and a pole- I can imagine that it’s not very easy running around carrying a metal cow over your head while it is shooting off fireworks.

That bright light you see in front of the church is the glow of the torito pinto.

Here is a YouTube video from the celebration in Suchitoto from a couple of years ago.  This video very clearly shows the insanity of the torito pinto.

I learned that the torito pinto is a pretty traditional thing in El Salvador- there’s even a really good song about it (the song in the video above is the song).  After I had witnessed the torito pinto, for the rest of the trip I kept hearing the song about the torito pinto.  I don’t remember hearing this song in my previous trips to El Salvador, but it’s possible that I did without recognizing that it was a song about a cow that shoots off fireworks.  Who would have thought that there was a metal cow that people run around with while it shoots off fireworks and that they would write a song about it.

I’m pretty sure that this firework show violated every single fireworks safety measure that would be taken in the US.  And yet as far as I know, no one was seriously injured.  Salvadorans love fireworks (they even love really loud fireworks at 5:00 in the morning as I found out one morning).  And Salvadorans are much braver than I am.  I guess they don’t have much fear.  Which is why I’m guessing they do fireworks they way they do.  It was certainly the most interesting and unique firework show I’ve ever witnessed.