Homegrown Homemade Pickles

With an ever growing pile of cucumbers from the garden taking up precious real estate on my cutting board, I decided to spend a few hours last Sunday "putting them up."  I searched the internet for simple pickling recipes and decided to try no fewer than four!

To start things off, the cucumbers get sliced quickly and evenly thanks to my mandoline slicer.

One of the first two recipes: Spicy Pickled Cucumbers.  Crushed red pepper and mint leaves give these an Asian flavor. I can't wait to eat them with ramen or pho.

I only made a total of five jars with my four recipes, keeping each batch pretty small.  The second recipe for 'Quick Garlic Pickles' can be found here.

After the cucumbers and a break to grab more vinegar, I got started on the carrots (also from the garden).  Most of them looked pretty nice after a good scrub.

But there were a few odd ones in the bunch.

Regardless of initial aesthetics, they all looked about the same, peeled and ready to chop.

I didn't have as many carrots as cucumbers, but I still made two varieties: one spicy with onions and jalapenos, and the other sweeter with hints of maple and ginger.

The jars went into the fridge, I washed a bunch of dishes and went to read a book outside to escape the vinegar smell permeating my house.

Later, at dinner time, the pickles emerged from the fridge for a taste test.

The "taco stand" carrots with jalapenos and the spicy cucumbers with mint were really spicy, and thankfully have become a little milder the over the past few days.  The quick garlic pickles are tasty, and the most versatile--I've been putting them on the sandwiches I've packed for lunch this week.  The ginger maple carrots are also very good, but you don't have to take my word for it.  The flavor is similar to the ones my housemate Michelle won "Best in Show" for at the Albemarle County Fair!

The garden isn't looking quite as nice as it did a month ago, so I am glad to have spent the time this past weekend making the most of its produce.  I have been thinking about planting some fall crops, but there are a few other projects around the house and some job applying I need to do first.

A Week of Eats--August 19

There was a good amount of cooking going on this week, at least early on.

Top row, L to R:

• Cocoa Kiss Cookies for a wedding shower at work.  The poor organizers had a hard time getting people to volunteer for things, and we played almost the same games as were played at the other wedding shower I happened to attend back in October.  The conference room did look lovely decorated in pink and white, and as of Friday, the balloon chandelier was still in place.
• Marigolds from my garden, which I finally gave some much needed attention last Thursday.
• Leftover pancakes fixed up with Greek yogurt and strawberries.

Bottom row, L to R:

• Artichoke paella, an easy but a time consuming dish.  Worked out perfectly though as it took some time for the landlord to remedy the giant black pond of ooze coming up from the drain in the kitchen floor.
• Thursday's garden cucumber harvest.  Last year it was zucchini, this year it's cukes.  While I have missed making eating zucchini bread, I have had some fun trying out different pickling recipes.  More on that later.
• My own version of pad thai with whole wheat spaghetti, eggplant, bell peppers, shrimp and scrambled egg. 

This week I am departing a bit from my usual work schedule for an interview on Thursday, and have the Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler race on Saturday!  I'm hoping to celebrate the successful completion of both events with something fun next weekend.

A Week of Eats: August 12

This week brings us squarely into mid-August, but with the weather recently has made it feel more like mid-September.  I woke up to temperatures in the low 60's this week, and didn't feel like I needed a full on shower after biking into work, always a plus!

The change in weather hasn't been dramatic enough to really cause a change in my kitchen, except for the pancakes I made this morning.  Waking up late to a consistent drizzle made them all the more delicious.

Other meals that made the cut:

• tuna melt with tomatoes and a side of homemade pickles
• breakfast smoothie made with peaches, bananas, orange juice, vanilla protein powder and cinnamon roll flavored yogurt--AMAZING!
• Sunday breakfast set up: pancakes and blog reading
• turkey sandwich with tomatoes and cucumbers dipped in sesame dressing 
• chef salad of sorts with more pickles (can't seem to get enough!)

I spent most of last Saturday out running errands and learned that a mental list is no substitute for a written one.  I failed to buy anything on my "list" at Target and instead left the store with this:

On the bright side, my total at the register was only $7, something rather unheard of around here; and I had a fun Sunday morning baking project.

Eight things ate of late

This post is inspired by today's date: August 8th.  Five years ago, it was 08/08/08 and an insanely popular day to get married, according to my Facebook feed.  Happy Anniversary Anna + Mike (and all of the rest of you, even if I wasn't there to see you get hitched)!!

One--I polished off the peach cobbler with some vanilla ice cream.  Note to self: get some more peaches before they are all gone.  Topping and ice cream are optional, but go big or go home, right?

Two--This "Enchilada Casserole," was not one of my better creations.  I am going to blame the jar of green enchilada sauce I used.

Three--The last piece of enchilada casserole drowned in fresh green salad with a garden tomato.

Four--Spicy breakfast eggs on toast.

Five--Homemade pickles, batch one.  The cucumbers keep on coming, so there will likely be more batches in my future.

Six--"Easiest Ever Choucroute" recipe torn from an old Family Circle magazine.  Choucroute is French for sauerkraut, and this came out pretty tasty, just in case you were wondering.

Seven--I bought ground turkey to make meal #8, but only used half of it, so I made turkey patties with the rest.  Topped with homemade pickles and some amazing grapes that held up in the fridge for over a week while I forgot about them.

Eight--Slow cooker cabbage rolls with rice; garden cucumber topped with cottage cheese, salt and pepper.  See the link for an appetizing photo; this was the best I could come up with!