Urban Gardening: Quick Pickles

So, I promised an update about the initial pickle experiment. Well, as TheKiddo™ has become fond of saying, "Oh Em Gee"!

We made a jar of sliced pickles and a jar of spears. These are scary simple to make as you'll realize when you read the recipe below. And so very tasty. 

How tasty? Less than 48 hours after we began the pickling, the jar of spears is almost empty. And that includes the 24 hours we didn't touch them as they pickled.

Since our inaugural efforts, I've naturally hunted down several more recipes that I'll want to try including some that actually take a fortnight for the pickling process. At this point, however, I may just vary the seasonings as we move through our cucumber harvest.

Our first two jars of pickles were created using something TheBetterHalf® spotted in the July/August issue of "Everyday Food." It was in the letter from the Editor In Chief, Sarah Carey. (As a side note, I happened to find her YouTube channel while writing this post. I highly recommend it if you're a fan of cooking.)

The recipe as I wrote it in my cooking notebook is:

Toss one pound (1 lb) of sliced Kirby Cucumbers with two tablespoons (2 T) coarse salt. Chill for one hour. Rinse and drain. Combine one cup (1 C) each water and white vinegar, one tablespoon (1 T) pickling spice, two teaspoons (2 t) salt, one (1) clove garlic, a few sprigs of dill, and one tablespoon (1 T) sugar. Stir to dissolve. Add cucumbers and chill in a quart container overnight (or up to one month).

A few additional notes: 

1. I'm not sure what kind of cucumbers we used, because I don't recall what we planted in
our garden. 
2. The pickling spice we bought in the bulk spice and grain area at Central Market. Whenever you're looking for spices in Dallas, go there. 
3. Using more than one clove of garlic is recommended by yours truly.
4. Many of the other recipes I've found call for the use of red pepper flakes (approximately one-quarter teaspoon per pound). Our pickling spice had lots of black peppercorns in it, so I didn't add the red flakes. I probably will for the next batch.

Now, go out and grow some cucumbers. Then turn them into delicious pickles. You can thank me later.