Simply Living and Loving Each Day

Quick Pickles 

Flavorful, crunchy pickles ready to eat in less than four hours. These pickles keep for up to two weeks.

Quick pickles are salted for 1 hour, then cooked in vinegar for just 5 minutes.


After finding Kirby cucumbers and dill at the farmer's market, I decided to tried the two quick pickle recipes in the latest issue of Cook's Country. The Dill pickles have a very strong dill flavor but are not very salty. Not nearly as good as homemade canned dill pickles; but they are fun to make with the kids that love to see cucumbers turn to pickles almost in an instant. They Bread-and-Butter pickles turned out great. I make these every year since Cade is a fan of these sweet pickles. They remind me of my Grandma Mildred, who often made Bread-and-Butter pickles. I wish I had her recipe; I found serveral different variations on the internet and from old cookbooks.

'KOSHER' DOUBLE-DILL PICKLES

Garlic is said to make dill pickles "kosher" and the double dose of dill-fresh and dried- packs in extra flavor. Don't overcook the cucumbers; they will lose thier big crunch.

1 pound pickling (Kirby) cucumbers
each sliced into 4 spears

1 T kosher salt

1 T black peppercorns

1 T dried dill weed

6 garlic cloves smashed

1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar

1/2 cup ice

1. Toss cucumbers with salt in a colander set over a bowl. Let stand 1 hour. Discard liquid.

2. Place peppercorns, dill weed, garlic, and 1/2 cup fresh dill in paper coffee filter or several layers of cheese cloth and tie tightly with kitchen twine. Bring spice bag and vinegar to a boil in medium saucepan. Reduce heat to low and add cucumbers. Cover and cook until cucumbers turn a dull olive-brown, about 5 minutes. Discard spice bag.

3. Transfer cucumbers and liquid to glass bowl, add ice, and stir until melted. Stir in remaining 1 T fresh dill. Refrigerate, uncovered, atleast 1 hour before serving. Pickles can be refrigerated in a covered container for up to 2 weeks.

BREAD-AND-BUTTER PICKLES

There's no consensus on how these sweet pickles got their name. Some claim the pickles are (like bread and butter) good enough to eat at every meal, or others say it's because they are often eaten on or with sandwiches. Another theory is that they took their name from the word smorgasbord which literaly translates as "bread and butter table". It's not surprising that pickles often appear as part of this Swedish buffet.

1 pound pickling (Kirby) cucumbers, sliced crosswise into 1/8 inch disks

1 med onion halved and sliced thin

1 T kosher salt

1 cup cider vinegar

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp yellow mustard seed

1/4 tsp celery seed

1/8 tsp ground tumeric

1. Toss cucumbers, onion, and salt in colander set over bowl. let stand 1 hour. Discard liquid.

2. Bring vinegar, sugar, mustard seed,celery seed, and tumeric to boil in large saucpan. Reduce heat to low, and add cucumbers and onion, and press to submerge in liquid. Cover and cook until cucumbers turn olive-brown, about 5 minutes.

3. Transfer entire pan contents to a glass bowl. Refrigerate, uncovered at least 2 hours before serving.