I Made Pickles!

Yay for me! I happen to love pickles; in fact, I used to eat my grandma's pickles pratically by the jarful and then drink the juice when I was done. My grandma used to be so worried that I was going to get a stomach ache, but it never happened (thankfully).

When I planted my garden this year (my first garden!) I made sure to include some small cucumbers so that I could try pickling myself (not try pickling *myself* - that would just be gross, but try pickling *for* myself, haha).

Instead of going the traditional pickling route, I decided to try latco-fermentation, which is a lot less complicated than it sounds, trust me! Remember my post about making whey? I promised I would tell you what you could do with whey :-).

Pickled Cucumbers - from Nourishing
Traditions

For each quart of pickles, combine:

• 4-5 pickling cucumbers or 15-20 gherkins


• 1 Tablespoon mustard seeds


• 2 Tablespoons fresh dill, snipped


• 1 Tablespoon salt


• 4 Tablespoons whey


• 1 cup filtered water
  
  Wash cucumbers and place in a quart-sized,
  wide-mouth mason jar. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over cucumbers, adding more water if necessary to cover the cucumbers.
  
  The top of the liquid should be at least 1 inch below the top of the jar. Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to cold storage.

So I only had 3 ripe cucumbers and was too impatient to wait, so instead of 4 - 5, I only had the three and just scaled the other incredients down a bit. It was interesting... what I ended up with was more cucumber than pickle.

The texture was perfect - just like a claussen, but the flavor was basically a crisp cucumber with a hint of dill. It's a possibility that I'll need to leave it in the fridge for a while before I get the right flavor (and if you've done this before, PLEASE leave any tips or tricks you may know).

I left the other two pickles in the jar and am going to wait a week before I try one again... I'll let you know if the flavor changes at all :-).

This post is a proud participant in Fight Back Friday.