We got about a dozen + cucumbers from Zak's grandparents with the purpose of pickling them at home. I tried to find a few recipes that would be easy enough, and this one was the winner. I would definitely recommend at least doubling the spice mixture, because we found that it only filled about 2 and a half jars. But it might be because we were unsure of how much the cucumbers would shrink, and we did five jars when we could've stuffed four and been fine. Anyways, having the extra spice mixture was better in the long run, because we poured it over some freshly sliced cucumbers and ate them after a few minutes (when we were in Seattle, we went to a Thai place where they had fresh pickles and thought it'd be easy enough to do, ours tastes almost like the restaurants'!).
A few days later, we decided to try this recipe with spear-cut cucumbers and no onions, and they turned out really well. We also played around with adding garlic to one jar, minced garlic to the spice mixture, and everything turned out really great. We have about 9 jars of pickles in the fridge now, so come over and eat some with us!
6 c. cucumbers, thinly sliced
2 c. onions, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. white vinegar
*4 - 5 garlic cloves, minced - optional*
4 - 6 pint jars, washed, boiled, etc.
1. Layer the cucumbers and onions in a glass container.
2. Mix the spices, sugar and vinegar together in a saucepan, heat until sugar as melted.
3. Pour over the cucumbers and onions.
4. Cover tightly and let sit in the fridge for about 48 hours before serving.
Zak did a great job with the cucumbers!
Zak was so cute, he wanted to do 'experiments' with the layering, etc. The first one: 50/50 (cukes, onions), 2nd: more onions, 3rd: more cucumbers, 4: added in garlic, 5: stuffed it really full. You can tell we were unsure of how much to put in the jars.
yum yum yum!
