The Lord blessed us with such an awesome house here in Colorado, and we are so thankful! It has an awesome sunny area out back for our vegetable garden (which I’m planning on expanding next spring!) and it has such an awesome kitchen. (How many times can I say the word “awesome”?? Apparently quite a few when I’m describing our home!) The kitchen has pretty much all new, matching appliances that are in top notch condition. Gotta love that! The only problem is that my stove is one of those flat electric cooktops… the kind that you’re not supposed to can on. So, instead of canning my produce, I’m having to come up with other solutions, such as blanching and freezing my veggies.
Anyhow, I was uncertain what I would do with my garden cucumbers until I found a recipe for refrigerator pickles a few weeks ago. No canning is required! I made one batch of them and wow. They are so good. You can make them with cucumbers, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, onions, peppers and probably so much more. They are easy, they are cheap and my kiddos love them.
Jaden and I harvested 4 cucumbers today and decided to make more pickles. Let me know if you try them yourself!
Refrigerator Pickles
1.5 c. distilled white vinegar OR apple cider vinegar
1/2 – 1.5 c. sugar, depending on how sweet you like your pickles.
1 T. pickling salt OR kosher salt (do not use regular table salt)
Sliced cucumbers (&/or combination of other veggies listed above)
1/8 t. mustard seed
1/8 t. celery seed
dash or two of turmeric
Heat the first 3 ingredients in a saucepan on the stove over medium high until the sugar dissolves, approx. 10 minutes. Meanwhile, slice the veggies and fill a quart sized canning jar with them. Add the spices to the jar. When the liquid mixture is ready, pour it over the top of the veggies. You can add more vinegar to the top if needed. Put lid on the jar and set out on counter until cooled a bit. Place jar in refrigerator for 5 days. Now you can eat your yummy, crunchy pickles.
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- All of the ingredients we used, except the sugar
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- My helper
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- 2 jars of cucumbers with onion
These pickles are supposed to keep for several months in the fridge and I’ve read that you can reheat the liquid mixture and reuse it to make another batch. Anyone tried this?
I can vouch for the yummy-ness of these pickles!
Sound good! Wish we had a garden. I think the church should have a community garden, where we can all pitch in and enjoy the harvest. Can you use stevia instead of the sugar?
Thanks, Mr. Olson!
And Alan – I’m not sure about the stevia as I’ve never tried it. It could work though. Some recipes that I found used 2-3x as much sugar as mine (!), and some don’t put in any sugar at all.
I love you Mrs. Olson! I wish I was there with you, making pickles and being happy homemakers together. Miss you sooo much!
Love,
Mrs. Brown