Pickles and Garden Eats

Hello! You thought I’d forgotten about posting my pickle recipe, right? Not so. Fine, I did forget — but then I remembered. I’m posting it right now, in the ‘continue reading’ section. I originally got the recipe from one of the big recipe sites, but I’ve tweaked it a tiny bit and do things differently than the original instructions indicated.
Last summer was all about kitchen DIY, for me. I baked my own bread, made my own yogurt, turned lots of berries into jam, and just generally wasn’t satisfied unless I’d made or grown as much of my meal as possible. In an effort to relaaaax, I’m trying to let go of that urge, so lunches like today’s seem special rather than mandatory.
Now that all my rocket/arugula has bolted and been torn out, all the other lettuces that were in the seed mixture have grown in pretty well. So I had a salad made from garden lettuce and added to it some of my pickle chips, a bit of purple bell pepper (which lost its purple when I cooked it, as all the purpliest vegetables do), sliced zucchini, and my first yellow pear tomato (!!!). I had a hearty portion of garden green beans on the side, along with a piece of Irish brown bread (baked yesterday from a mix I brought back in April) with homemade raspberry-rhubarb jam. Oh, and a fake sausage patty, but I had no hand in making that, aside from popping it in the microwave.
I guess, to be fair to my garden, I have to admit that it delivered its first tomato on the exact same date this year as last year. But a cherry tomato doesn’t seem as impressive as a ‘real’ one (which are all very much still green). It was delicious, though — I’m really glad I chose this yellow pear variety. Two years ago, I tried standard cherry tomatoes and hated their flavour, but these are much more mellow. And they’re yellow and pear-shaped, so they can’t really get any better than that.

Refrigerator Pickles
1 1/2 pounds small cucumbers
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tablespoon dill seed, crushed
1/2 tablespoon mustard seed, crushed
1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes, crushed
2 cups white distilled vinegar
2 cups cold water
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon sugar
Use a mandoline or a knife to slice your cucumbers into thin chips — about 1/4″ or a few millimeters thick. Divide them between two large pickle jars (or however many it takes, depending on their size). Slice the garlic very thinly and divide this between the jars as well. Do the same with the spices/seeds.
In a large bowl, mix together the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar. Stir until the salt and sugar have dissolved, and then use a funnel or a ladle to add this brining solution to the jars. It should cover the sliced cucumbers. Put the lids on the jars and carefully shake them up to evenly distribute the garlic and seeds.
Because the slices are so thin, it doesn’t take long for them to taste pickled. But try to wait at least a few hours. Because your jars aren’t sealed, you should keep them in the fridge, and use your good sense to know when they’ve gone off — or just eat them so quickly that that’s not a problem.