At the market I spotted (for the first time this season) my beloved pickling cucumbers (the ones in my garden will be ready in about a week or two). I grabbed about 20 cuces and happily went home with a mission.
And with a little bit of racking my brain (trying my hardest to remember Linda Turano's garlic dill pickle recipe) and improvising in the kitchen I made my first batch of summer pickles for summer 2011 - hip hip hooray!
it went a little like this:
20 pickling cucumbers sliced into quarters
~3 cups of cider vinegar
~4 cups water
~cup sugar
~4 - 5 tbs salt
hand ful of dill seeds, yellow mustard seeds, and black pepper corn
and a ton of fresh dill, garlic & garlic scapes
Cut cucumbers and shove them into your jars (I used three of varying sizes) - don't over stuff but you want them to stand up on their own. Shove in a bunch of dill, garlic and or garlic scapes...Mix the vinegar, water, sugar, and spices until dissolved and then poor over your pickles and refrigerate -and PRESTO - pickles...well they are best to wait at least a day... and that is about as long as I can possibly hold out until ate my first 4 (or 10)- they really start getting delicious after a week or two...but they never last that long...
(mind you as I sit here typing this I am finishing off the first jar...a jar much smaller than the one shown...really!)
even Isabelle can't get enough of them..
so delicious they make her want to sleep better ...(not)
Other signs of summer to relish in include the gentle humming of bees, so much lettuce we don't know what to do with it, monday night ice cream, the signs of raspberries ripening, and lots of fires in the backyard.
honey bees on lavender
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