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...