cucumbers

Crazy Awesome, Super Easy Dill Pickles

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These pickles rock.

They are crunchy, salty and full of great dill and garlic flavor with that awesome lacto-fermented tang that is highly addictive and unique.

I went a little nuts on planting cucumbers this year with these pickles in mind.

lacto fermented pickles

 

Luckily you can get great pickling cucumbers at most farmers markets and farm stands in the U.S. this time of year so even if you don’t have cucs ripening by the minute outside your door you can still make a batch of these.

lactofermented pickles

lactofermented pickles

The three best things about these pickles are;

  1. They are lacto-fermented (no canning required)
  2. They are lacto-fermented (they are an incredibly healthy “live” probiotic-filled food)
  3. They are lacto-fermented (which in my book equals delicious)

I’ve written many times about my love of lacto-fermented food, including with my recipe for saurkraut, kimchi, and pickled vegetables.   They have a unique tang and je ne sais quoi that can’t be found in any other food.  Plus, the naturally occurring “good bacteria” (probiotics) has improved my immune system dramatically.

Like most lacto-fermented food, this recipe is really just a guideline.  The only important ratio is the 5 tablespoons of sea salt to the 2 quarts of water; the garlic and dill are more of a personal preference.

lactofermented pickles

 

Keeping the cucumbers whole helps keep them crunchy!

lactofermented pickles

 

Another thing that helps keep them crunchy is the addition of grape leaves.  There is a tannin in the leaves that does this, oak leaves and horseradish leaves can also be used but grapevines are a bit easier to come by.

lactofermented pickles

lactofermented pickles

 

I have a disgusting amount of wild grapevines in my backyard so I didn’t have to look hard to harvest for this batch of pickles.

The grape leaves also provide a bit of a protective layer for the top of the brine, which can get a little filmy sometimes, more on that in the recipe.

lactofermented pickles

 

 

Start by laying down half of the leaves in the bottom of your jar, followed by half the dill and garlic.

Fill the jar with the cucumbers, packing as tightly as possible.

lacto fermented pickles

lacto fermented pickles

Stuff the rest of the dill and garlic down into the holes.

 

lacto fermented pickles

Fill the jar with the salt and water brine solution (details in the recipe), leaving at least an inch of headroom.

 

lacto fermented pickles

Lots more details in the following “recipe”.

Crazy Awesome Super Easy Dill Pickles

Ingredients
  • Large Glass Jar (holds at least 2 quarts, preferably with a wide mouth)
  • 8-15 Pickling Cucumbers
  • 5 Tablespoons Sea Salt*
  • 2 Quarts Water*
  • 3-5 Cloves Garlic
  • 1-3 Heads Dillweed
  • 4-6 Big Grapevine Leaves (washed)
Instructions
  1. *The amount of brine (water and salt solution) you need depends on the size and amount of cucumbers you use. This recipe will probably leave you with leftover brine that can be saved for your next batch.
  2. Dissolve the salt in 1 cup of boiling water and let cool then combine it with the rest of the water to create the pickling brine
  3. In the bottom of a clean jar place 2-3 grape leaves
  4. Add half of the garlic and half of the dill
  5. Add all of your cucumbers, try to pack them in as tight as possible (it’s a bit of a tetris game)
  6. In the nooks and crannies place the rest of your garlic and dill
  7. Pour in the pickling brine, covering the top cucumbers completely but leaving at least an inch of “headroom”
  8. Wiggle the jar a bit to release any air that was trapped at the bottom
  9. Cover the top of the brine with the remaining grape leaves
  10. Cover the jar with a lid or a plastic bag secured with a rubberband (if, like me, you got big jars but not big lids!)
  11. Leave on the counter to ferment for 5-8 days
  12. The cucumbers will quickly change from bright green to a more earthy, darker green and the clear brine will start to cloud a little
  13. A white film may appear on the top, this is just fine and can be poured off once the pickles are done
  14. After 5-8 days taste for flavor, the pickles should still be crunchy and should look and feel “pickled” all the way through (not just on the surface. At first they will be more salty than tangy. At this point the top grape leaves can be tossed, the top bit of brine poured off if filmy, and the jar moved to the fridge. Pickles can be kept in the fridge for several months, although the crunch will diminish with time.

I’m pretty simple with my pickle-eating; they are usually eaten straight from the jar while making lunch or occasionally cut thin for a sandwich.  Either way, these pickles f-ing rock! You should probably go make a batch..or five…asap.

 

Garden Life

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One of the most frequent questions I get from readers is about starting a garden.

I love and fear these inquiries.

I love that people are wanting to take an active role in their food production.

Maybe fear is too strong a word, but I often find myself in pause, fingers hovering above the keyboard, without knowing how to respond.

As I set out to sow my garden last year I was surprised to realize how little knowledge I had about gardening.  I have lots of experience but not a lot of knowledge. I grew up in the dirt.  Summers were full of tomato harvesting and corn shucking and I vividly remember trailing behind my papa, dropping little seeds into the earth as he troweled the ditch.

Those first 18 years spent among the potato beetles and sugar snap peas provided me with  surprisingly little knowledge about how to plan, sow, nurture, and even harvest.  Thank goodness for Google! 😉 No, really, reading and research has helped, as has talking to seasoned gardeners, but I’ve found that the way I learn best is to, literally, get my hands dirty.

I am coming into my second season as a self-proclaimed full-fledged gardener.   Here are a few gardening (life?) lessons I’ve picked up along the way.

Grow what you love to eat.

The rewards will be so much sweeter if you are really excited about eating your harvest.  I don’t grow turnips or lemon cucumbers because they aren’t something I really love to eat.

Or Learn to Love What You Grow

Chives and thyme are two herbs I threw in without giving it a lot of thought.  I didn’t eat either of them regularly but it seemed like they should be included in the herb bed.  And now they are going nuts.  So I eat them.  Thyme has gone into cocktails, salt, more salt, and stuffing.  Chive blossoms have been sprinkled on salads and pickled.  An overly prolific plant can lead to some very tasty kitchen creativity!

Release Expectations and Take Notes

The above puny little arugula plants were sown months ago, in a raised bed with good light and decent soil.

The above thriving (and bolting) arugula was planted at the same time under a black walnut tree in a bed of clay riddled with sour-grass.  Go figure.

Itty, Bitty Seeds Grow Up to Be Nice Big Plants

I tend to overcrowd when I sow seeds directly.  It’s hard to imagine that those tiny little pen-tip seeds will grow so big!  They will, as long as you give them some breathing room.  There is definitely a sweet spot between planted too sparse and too dense.  So far my method to achieve this is too over sow then thin (pull up the little shots) but I end up wasting a lot of seeds.  It helps if you wait to thin until the seedlings are big enough to eat (microgreens!) but it still requires some experience to find that balance.

Practice Patience

The big kale (Red Russian) was planted last fall (October?).  It remained tiny throughout the winter, I picked maybe two handfuls from the dozens of plants I have.  Just as I was about to pull it out this Spring to make way for new greens it started to go nuts.

The little kale (Lacinato) was planted according to my local sowing guide (March? April? I don’t remember exactly).  It popped up quickly (germinated in garden-speak) and then totally stalled out until the last week.  Once again, I was about to pull it when it hit a major growth spurt.

Practice Perseverance

I was seduced by the unseasonable heat back in April and put in a few cucumber plants.  The promptly froze.  Then I put in a few more.  They were eaten.  A few more seeds went into the ground.  They seem to be doing okay but just in case I’m going to do a few more, in a different location, with some critter protection.  I want garden cucumbers, dammit!  (The above were from last years garden, so good….)

Trust Your Gut

My research told me that my garlic would be ready next month.  My gut told me it’s ready now.

I dug it up this morning and it looks good to me!

 

Another lesson here is that gardening both requires and inspires confidence.  You must be confident that you can trust your instincts and grow and nurture a living thing.  With each growing success your confidence builds.  A total win-win. 😉

For more posts on gardening, check out I Grow.