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.