Pickled

One friend, who always keeps two school-age children for the summer, told me, "Well, I started combat duty this week." I understand. While loving every minute of time spent with these precious little folks, it does give us old folks quite the workout. My brain is slightly pickled. There is not much time to sit down. Someone is always getting into something they shouldn't be! But this is memory making at it's finest. It gives us things to think about when we don't see them as much in the fall.

 The littlest of the three granddaughters here now.

Since my blog writing time is limited, I'm sharing (with her permission) a recipe from a fellow knitter I met at the knitting retreat in Georgia this spring. Thanks, Bev, for helping me out here this week! Our garden is providing squash and cucumbers at an alarming rate right now. This recipe sounds easy enough for me to try even while keeping the littles. Maybe. I'll let you know if that happens.

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Here is what Bev wrote...

Here’s the pickle recipe. Here’s what I like about it…it tastes good, you can make it in small batches, it’s easy and quick to make, it doesn’t heat up the kitchen, and it makes a great gift to take. Make it today, put in a pretty jar tomorrow and it’s ready to give away.

MICROWAVE BREAD & BUTTER PICKLES

1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry minced garlic
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
1 medium onion, peeled and sliced thin
2-3/4 to 3 lbs pickling cucumbers, sliced

Mix everything except onion and cukes in a large microwave safe bowl. Stir in onions and cukes. Microwave 9 minutes on high, stopping to stir at 6 1/2 and at 4 minutes to go (as the microwave timer counts down.) 

Remove and allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate overnight before placing in jars. Store in fridge. NOTE: SPICES WILL STAIN A PLASTIC BOWL OR SPOON OR KITCHEN COUNTER!

Yield: 6 to 7 half pint jars


The onions in this are wonderful and I use them and the juice in potato salad, egg salad, slaw, chicken salad etc. I like big slices of onion instead of sliced thin. If you use squash and red sweet pepper instead of cukes, it is tasty as well as pretty in the jar. You can use any kind of cukes, but I like the pickling ones best. I have a big deep casserole dish that I use and I don’t measure the cukes, I just fill my dish and make sure to stir it good at the times noted in the recipe.

Hope you like it.
--bev