Pickled green tomatoes

After I picked all those green tomatoes on Saturday, I had to do something with them. Pickling seemed the easiest option. First, I scrubbed them all with a soft brush and dunked them in light bleach solution to remove any possible mouse residue.

In two 1-quart jars, I placed dill seeds, peppers, garlic, bay leaves, celery seed, salt, sugar, black peppercorns and sichuan peppercorns. I was riffing off of Homesick Texan's recipe, sort of.
Then I chopped up the tomatoes and packed the jars, filling them to the top with brine.
I dunno. They look pretty, anyway! I hope they taste OK.

I took the opportunity to fry up one of the larger tomatoes for dinner. You dredge thick, seasoned tomato slices in flour, eggs and bread crumbs (I used Italian-style panko). Just about anything tastes good fried, and green tomatoes are no exception.

I've still got a passel of them, though. I'm thinking I might try a green tomato relish recipe next. It involves salting the pickles overnight, then cooking them down.

Unless you have any better ideas?

Hot hot hot

The first batch of hot spicy pickles I made were great, but not hot enough, the Sergeant said. The next batch even less so (I used cayennes instead of jalapeños).

So this time I packed six sliced peppers (cayenne, Thai and cherry peppers) in the bottom of a two-quart jar, topped with twelve sliced cukes and three whole Anaheims.

The jar is now ensconced in the back of the fridge with a note saying, "Do not open until Nov. 10."

They should be pretty darn hot by then.

Refrigerator pickles: piquant and perfect

I planted a couple of cucumber seedlings in a newer flower bed where they would get some water from the lawn sprinklers. They are not as aggressive or as large as pumpkins, but provide some nice greenery and, yes, cucumbers. Time for refrigerator pickles!

These are really awesome. Really truly. And easy.

Peel and slice four cukes. Add two sliced red hot peppers (seeded and deveined – wear gloves!). Put them in a large glass jar or bowl.

In a pot, bring to a boil the following:

• 1 1/4 cups water
  
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
  
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
  
• 1 minced shallot
  
• 1 1/2 tablespoons dill seeds
  
• 1 1/2 tablespoons salt

Reduce the heat and let it simmer for a couple of minutes, then pour it over the cukes and peppers.

Let it all cool on the counter, then refrigerate.

If you don't like spicy, reduce or omit the peppers. I'm planning to remove the peppers from the brine after two days of pickling, since the heat is right where I like it.

I don't think this batch is going to last more than a few days, though – we're eating them so fast. I'll just make some more!

Thanks to Smitten Kitchen for the basic brine recipe (originally from Gourmet).

Awesome salad with pickled onions and parsley pesto

This salad starts with a turkey reuben, oddly enough. That was the very tasty sandwich I had at 900 Grayson in Berkeley on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

With it came a nice little green salad with pickled beets and even better, pickled onions. Oh my, so tasty.

Since I had volunteered to bring a salad to Thanksgiving dinner, those onions were an inspiration. I looked around online and found Sassy Radish's post on Anne Burrell's recipe for escarole salad with pickled red onions.

Well, you don't have to use escarole; romaine works just dandy. And the salad's not just about the onions; it's got some other goodies, too.

Start with the pickling a day ahead if you can. You'll need a red onion, thinly sliced. Put it into a mixture of 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup cold water, 2 tablespoons kosher salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar and a couple good shakes of hot sauce such as Tabasco or sriracha.

If you're making a really big salad, you can double this with two onions, but don't double the salt. (I learned this the hard way, but with enough time to rectify it.)

If you like pickled things, you may find yourself the next day eating onions out of the bowl like candy.

When you're ready to make the salad, you toast 1/2 cup hazelnuts (pieces or whole, doesn't matter). Toss them into a food processor (if you have a mini one, that works great) with 1/2 cup grated hard, pungent cheese such as pecorino romano or asiago or parmesan or a combination (thanks, Trader Joe's!), and about 2 tablespoons of fresh parsley leaves. Pulse until it looks a bit like dry pesto.

Toss this mixture in your lettuce with a good drizzle of olive oil, the onions, and some spoonfuls of the pickling liquid.
It was very good! The Thanksgiving salad disappeared, as did one for a party the next night.

The salad you see here is just for me; I made a big batch of onions and pesto and I'm eating yummy fresh salads all week.

Impromptu pickles

Since I had a bunch of dill left over after making the ricotta torte, and a cuke and carrots, and fresh inspiration from a pickling post at A Way to Garden, I threw together a batch of fridge pickles.

It doesn't really match the posted recipe (I cut up the cuke, for one), but inspiration is inspiration, so I give credit.

I have a bunch of old cooking implements from my grandmother's and great-grand-mother's kitchens. The canning funnel came in handy today.

Previous pickling posts:
Lacto-fermented sauerkraut (with an update)
Refrigerator pickles
Pickled green beans and carrots inspired by Smitten Kitchen

Refrigerator pickles

I used up the watercress and sprouts, but I still had 3/4 of a cucumber. When you have leftover vegetables and don't feel like putting them in a salad – a cucumber, maybe some carrots, a handful of green beans, whatever – you can always make a quick batch of refrigerator pickles to turn them into a tasty snack.
I made a big batch not long ago based on Smitten Kitchen's recipe, but this time I just wung it. (Wung is the past tense of wing, right?)

You just want a 1:1 ratio of water and vinegar, which you bring to a boil with a pinch of sugar and some seasonings, in this case dill seed, dill leaves, red pepper flakes, some cumin seeds, a few mashed cloves of garlic and some minced shallot. And a bay leaf. Pour it over your vegetables, allow it to cool, then refrigerate for several days. A quick (not counting the days of pickling) and easy snack!

Pickled carrots and green beans: Tangy!

I love a nice pickle, especially pickled things other than cukes. Pickled asparagus? Absolutely. Pickled okra? Divine.

I've made refrigerator pickles, but it just never occurred to me that you could use other vegetables. Obviously I wasn't thinking very hard. But Deb at Smitten Kitchen was. When I saw her post yesterday, I knew I'd be shopping at Wild Oats today for carrots and dill seeds.
I love me some green beans, too, so I thought I'd toss some into the mix. The recipe is simple. (Look at Deb's recipe for the exact measurements.) I added a pinch of red pepper flakes, too, and doubled the brine because I had so many veggies.It's really very simple. You cut up your vegetables and you boil up your brine, then pour one over the other and let it sit until cool. Then let it sit some more in the fridge, preferably for a few days, if you can wait that long.
I'm not sure I'll be able to!

You might want to have a jar of pickled something to nosh on in the meantime, since this will make your kitchen redolent with tanginess – tangy-ness? – and make you a little crazy. But in a good way.

Fresh produce

For my caprese yesterday I wanted fresh tomatoes not from Safeway. Had this been a normal year, they would have been growing in my backyard. I thought about going to Cherry Creek Farmers Market, but it's such a zoo there. Too many people, too hot, crazy parking lot. Then I remembered the supposed existence of a produce market in a neighborhood not far from me. I found the address and looked at the map and still it took me 10 minutes of driving in circles before I found it.
Wilkerson's is a funky mix of country farmstand and hoarder's junkyard. The lady who was running it was super nice and showed me everything that was locally grown. She had just finished adding dill to this jumbo jar of pickles she was making:

I came away with a nice little haul of vegetables and peaches, about $10 worth.
The bag on the right is roasted sweet red peppers, which I snatched up as soon as she pointed them out to me. Her husband likes them, so once in a while he roasts a big batch and they sell the extras. I'm thinking of all the things I can do with them: soup, salsa, grilled cheese ...

Wilkerson's Produce:
1995 S Santa Fe Dr.
303-744-8419

There's no entrance off Santa Fe. They're right behind the soundwall at the Evans exit, on the northeast corner of West Asbury and South Elati. Easiest way to get there is to go west on Evans from Santa Fe, take the very first right/north that you can, which is Galapago, turn right/east on Asbury and go all the way to the end. Turn left/north on Elati, and it's the second driveway on your right