the underbelly

So I recently left my internship in order to dedicate myself to freelance writing. I had images of myself hard at work in a coffee shop – typing away, sipping on a large mug of tea, pushing the glasses I don’t own but sometimes think I need up my nose…instead….I made pickles. 

With the abundance of dill that I have from my CSA shipment a friend of mine (whose awesome new blog you can see here) suggested I make easy pickles from a Mark Bittman Recipe. Here’s essentially all it called for:

Kirby pickles (I got “minicukes,” which I think are essentially the same thing), a big bunch of dill, salt, garlic and water. The recipe also calls for caraway seeds or dill seeds. I had neither. Instead I stuck some pepper corns into the mix and a little be of lemon juice towards the end. Since the recipe doesn’t call for vinegar these pickles are more salty than pickly. It also means they only last about a week. But they’re amazingly delicious, refreshing and seriously easy to make. 

The ingredients ready to be pickl-ized. All you need to do is boil a cup of water, mix it with the salt, add the ingredients and cover with water. 

Voila. Then you let them sit under a lid at room temperature for about 24 hrs. 

And then you have pickles!!! Stick them in the fridge and munch on them or add them to tuna to make an awesomely mild tuna salad like I did for lunch today. 

I think it’s a little sad how proud I am of this. I just put things in a brine and left them alone. But I am seriously proud. I guess when you’re mildly unemployed it’s the little things that count….sigh….anyway. Hooray pickles!