Friday, July 6, 2012

Making Quick Pickles

My little guy has never really been interested in food that is...well... food. Plants are not a favorite. Actually that is an overstatement. Plants are met with tears. Lots of tears. 

So anytime I can instill some sort of excitement over food that grows I try to take it. After stopping by our CSA this week to grab our veggies we also stopped at a new farm stand on our way home. It was nice to meet another farmer and find out what he was growing (even though the farms are within a mile of each other). He had this super fun purple cauliflower, yummy apricots, and a huge pile of cucumbers. The first of the season. Barrett went straight for them (which surprised me as I have never seen him willingly eat a cucumber) and filled up a bag as high as it could go. The price was reasonable so I figured he could go ahead and take them home. 

What to do with all those cucumbers? I offered them for lunch with no success so later we decided to go ahead and make some quick pickles. We are going to serve them with fried chicken for dinner tonight. 


For this activity I had him put the cut up cucumbers in the jar however he wanted (he chose tongs). He also helped measure the ingredients and shake the jars. You can obviously choose how much involvement they have. They could cut and pour easily as well. 

Here is what we did

1/2 cup- 1 cup white vinegar 
2 rounded teaspoons agave
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp fresh dill leaves 
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic- crushed
4 kirby cucumbers


Heat vinegar over medium heat with garlic and sugar until simmering. Toss ingredients with cucumbers in a heat safe jar/bowl. Add the hot vinegar and let cool. 

*These will not be officially preserved so eat them right away and keep refrigerated. 






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