Quick Pickles

I'm a little late getting on the preserving bandwagon. It seems everyone I know virtually or in real life has been pickling and canning and generally preserving a bounty of delicious foods. I'm still a little scared of the whole canning process (heat plus glass plus botulism = scary to me) but I saw people talking about quick pickles and finally decided to try it. I blogged a little about our first attempt here. I found using a 50/50 white vinegar/water combo for the brine had more kick than I wanted. Sunday night we took a bag of pickling cukes, sliced them and put them in jars with fresh dill, peppercorns and a bay leaf, made some brine (just took a wild guess at the salt), poured the hot brine over the mixture, let it cool and refrigerated. I cracked one open this morning and they are delicious! Bright, crunchy, flavorful. Love them.

We also grabbed a bag of small sweet peppers and did roughly the same thing. We added red onion, garlic and a little jalapeno to each jar. I don't know how they taste yet but they sure are pretty.

Things That Turned My Hands Red Today

Eliina



Her rinse water



Radishes for pickling



The beets made them reddest of all

Crepes!

Older son is home sick today. He asked if we could make crepes for lunch. Sure, why not? The batter is so simple he could easily have made it himself. It took a few until I got better at spreading the batter out on the griddle without making bald spots or leaving really thick spots. Very yummy.

Vegetarians, Avert Your Eyes

Wes and I tried Mark Bittman's Oven-Smoked Ribs yesterday. They are so incredibly easy but they do require you to start cooking dinner three plus hours ahead of time. I really loved them. The flavor was smoky and meaty and the ribs were nice and tender. Wes and older son liked them but wanted more of a BBQ experience. But we still annihilated a whole rack between the three of us. If you want a dry-rub, smokey rib, this is the way to go.