Hurray for Pickles

All my life I have not like pickles. I find them to be too tart, too soggy, too floppy, too weird, too just plain un-tasty. Then one day while slaving away as an intern someone brought in a giant jar of home canned pickles and garlic. With great hesitation I tried yet another pickle, but much to my surprise they were delicious! I couldn't stop eating them, they might as well have been Ruffles Sour Cream and Cheddar potato chips. Fast forward to summer 2009 when I learned how to make refridgerater pickles. Ever since that summer I wait eagerly for the local farmer's market to have pickling cucumbers and last Saturday was my lucky day! So let me tell you how to make a great refrigerator pickle, trust me it is super easy and leaves lots of space for creative license.

To start, head out to your local Farmer's Market. On Saturday I went to this one.

Browse the goods and select your favorites potential pickles.

I try to find ones that are similar in size so that each one is consistent in textures and flavor, but hey variety is the spice of life so try different sizes too!

Get home and find your favorite pickling recipe.

Rinse off the cucumbers thoroughly, no one likes dirt with their pickles.

Collect your ingredients.

Remember, be creative, try new spices and veggies. For this recipe I did not include the onions because I don't like them (are you starting to see a pattern here?). I did throw in some celery seed and dill. I also didn't have a full cup of apple cider vinegar so I topped it off with white vinegar.

Put all the ingredients (minus the cukes) in a pot and boil for five minutes.

While the liquid boils, get out your New West KnifeWorks knife of choice.

As always I choose the Petty. However a Fusionwood Chopper would work great in this situation, as would a Chef knife for the fancy chefs out there.

Put the pickles in the jar, loosely packed and not all the way to the top. Then just pour the liquid over the pickles.

Now the hard part, put the jars in the refrigerator and wait 24 hours...then, yum!

To summarize, I still don't care for pickles unless they are homemade. So head out to your local farmer's market and make some delicious refrigerator pickles, you won't be disappointed. Hurray for pickles!