Tag: cucumbers

Hot Garlic Dill Pickles Heat Up

Hot garlic dill pickles have become an obsession. I use the same tried-and-true recipe with minor variations at times.  This small personal batch has been slightly perverted with the addition of the powdered cayenne being introduced directly to the jar and not in the vinegar solution.  Also, I added ghost peppers, scorpion peppers, habanero, big hot chilies, and tabasco peppers to the jar in addition to the usual cayenne  pepper flakes.  I have said in the past that “you can’t really get them too hot..”, but in the case of this run, I may change that statement.

I carefully chose the nicest peppers out of my dried collection from the garden.  Most of these are for cooking only.  They are really too hot to eat alone.  However, in the case of this fresh pack pickle batch, they will be working in a “hybrid” culinary culture.  They won’t be eaten. They will be infused with the cucumbers along with the dill and garlic.

In a few days, I’ll cool these down in the fridge and try a few out.  I’m excited to see if they are going to be as hot as I suspect they’ll be. Holy Hell Batman!!

Fruit/Vegetable Preparation Tips

Tom Warner Photography
Tom Warner Photography
Fruits & Vegetables How To Prepare
Apples Core your apples and remove the seeds before pushing through your juicer.
Apricots Rinse and slice in half to remove the pit.
Asparagus Rinse the stalks carefully and push through juicer, putting the bottom of the stalk through first.
Avocado You can blend your juices in a blender with an avocado to thicken it up, but never put an avocado in a juicer.
Bananas Similar to the avocado, never juice bananas! But feel free to blend your juices in a blender with a banana to thicken it up.
Beets (Beetroot) Peel your beets before juicing them! This will avoid the “earthy” taste that many people complain about after juicing an unpeeled beet. Depending on the size of your beets, slice to fit your juicer shoot. Juice your beet greens, too!
Bell peppers Rinse and remove the stem, but you can save time and forget removing the seeds – it’s fine to juice them. Cut to size and juice.
Blackberries Rinse in a strainer. They don’t keep well after being rinsed, so best to wash them the day you plan to juice them.
Blueberries Rinse in a strainer.
Broccoli After rinsing, juice it all. From the stalk to the head, you can receive many nutritional benefits from juicing broccoli.
Butter lettuce Rinse leaves individually, checking for dirt and sand. No need to remove the stems. Roll the leaves up and run through your juicer. Leafy greens move best through your juicer when followed by a harder fruit or vegetable, like apples, celery, or cucumbers.
Cabbage Green and red cabbage are great for juicing. Be sure to select a cabbage head that is firm with crisp leaves. Cut the cabbage in quarters, or smaller if needed, so it easily fits into the juicer shoot. If you don’t like the taste of beets, you can substitute red cabbage in any juice recipe that calls for beets.
Cactus pears Peel and cut to size if needed.
Cantaloupe (Rockmelon) Remove the rind, flesh and seeds before juicing this orange melon.
Carrots Rinse thoroughly before passing through the juicer and that’s it! You can juice your carrots with the greens and skins still on.
Celeriac (Celery root) Wash carefully, as grit can get stuck in the nooks and crannies of this hearty root vegetable. As with beets, if you don’t prefer an earthy taste, peel the celeriac first. Cut to fit your juicer.
Celery Rinse thoroughly and add entire celery stalk through the juicer (even the leafy tops).
Chard (Silverbeet) Rinse leaves individually, checking for dirt and sand. No need to remove the stems. Roll the leaves up and run through your juicer. Leafy greens move best through your juicer when followed by a harder fruit or vegetable, like apples, celery, or cucumbers.
Cherries Rinse and use a small paring knife to remove the small pits before juicing. Add a handful to your juicer at one time.
Chayotes Wash and chop to fit your juicer, then juice!
Collard greens These are a great leafy green, and can be used if kale (Tuscan cabbage) isn’t available. Wash the large leaves and roll up before juicing.
Cranberries Rinse and run through juicer. Make sure you juice them with something sweet because these are really tart…not like the commercial cranberry juice you buy in the store!
Cucumbers Cut the cucumber in half and use it to help push leafy greens through your juicer. No need to peel.
Dandelion Juice as you would any other leafy green – wash leaves and roll up. Push through with firmer produce. These have some bite to them, so use sparingly, or round off with a sweet and juicy fruit, like pineapple.
Eggplant I’ve never juiced eggplant and I don’t think I ever will! I think eggplant is best for eating.
Fennel bulbs Rinse and cut them to fit through your juicer and you’ll notice a slight flavor that might remind you of black licorice.
Grapefruit Peel and try to keep as much of the white pith on as possible since the pith contains nutrients that help your body absorb the vitamin C and other amazing antioxidants found in citrus fruits. Cut to fit your juicer and juice. You can keep the seeds in as they contain excellent nutrients too.
Grapes Wash your grapes, remove them from their stems, and add them through your juicer. Experiment with all color grapes.
Jicama Wash, slice, but don’t peel jicama before adding it to your vegetable juicer. The jicama juice will contain nutrients that were near the skin even after the skin’s been pulped away.
Kale (Tuscan cabbage) Use any kind – lacinato, red, green, purple, curly, etc. – and add the leafy green through your juicer after rinsing. It’s best to add 3 – 4 leaves at a time.
Kiwi (Kiwifruit) Peel and run through your juicer, seeds and all.
Leeks Keep the root and the green part on the leek, and slice in half the long way. Gently separate and rinse between the layers. Check for dirt or sand hiding between the layers.
Lemons Peel and try to keep as much of the white pith on as possible since the pith contains nutrients that help your body absorb the vitamin C and other amazing antioxidants found in citrus fruits. Cut to fit your juicer and juice. You can keep the seeds in as they contain excellent nutrients too.
Limes Peel, and try to keep as much as the white pith on as possible (you can use a peeler for that), since the pith contains nutrients that help your body absorb the vitamin C and amazing antioxidants found in citrus fruits. Cut to fit your juicer, and remove the seeds. If you have a centrifugal juicer, you can keep the seeds in. They contain excellent nutrients too.
Mangos Peel and cut spears of mango from the core. Makes a great tropical juice when mixed with pineapple! Also lends a great creamy texture to your juice.
Melons Cut into wedges and remove outer skin with a knife or peeler. You can juice these with seeds.
Mustard greens Juice these like you would any leafy green but definitely choose a small amount of mustard greens. This potent green will give a very strong taste and adds lots of spice. It will literally warm your insides.
Onions Go easy on these, as they can give your juices a super strong flavor. Some people prefer not to juice these at all. Peel papery skin and slice to fit your juicer, if needed. Onions are another one to start with a small amount, taste your juice, and add more if you like it. If eating raw onions bothers your stomach, you probably want to skip juicing them.
Oranges Peel and try to keep as much of the white pith on as possible since the pith contains nutrients that help your body absorb the vitamin C and other amazing antioxidants found in citrus fruits. Cut to fit your juicer and juice. You can keep the seeds in as they contain excellent nutrients too.
Papayas Cut in half and peel the skin. You can leave the seeds in to juice them.
Parsnips These are super easy, like carrots, especially if you have smaller or skinny ones. Just rinse and run through your juicer! If they’re larger, you may need to slice in half lengthwise. Use these to run leafy greens through your juicer.
Peaches Cut in half to remove the pit and juice.
Pears These can be juiced whole. Just wash and slice to fit your juicer, if needed.
Pineapples The heavier a pineapple is, the riper it is. Grab hold of the top and twist off. Slice into quarters, cut out the woody core, peel the skin, and juice.
Plums Wash and slice in half to remove the pit. These give your juice a gorgeous color with an antioxidant punch.
Pomegranate Here’s a trick for this tricky fruit: Fill a bowl up with water. Slice pomegranate in half without pulling the halves apart, and then submerge in the bowl of water to break it apart. This keeps the juice from squirting everywhere. Then, keeping it in the water, break the pomegranate into chunks and tease the seeds out. The white parts will float and the seeds will sink. Remove all the skin and the white parts from the top of the water and use a slotted spoon to remove the seeds. Then juice the seeds!
Radishes Just rinse and run through your juicer. Leave the root and stem on, but remove the leaves if they have any. Watch out! These can spice up your juice in a flash, so add small amounts at a time. If you’re feeling cold, adding these to your juice will warm you right up.
Raspberries Just rinse and juice. Add a little bit of lemon to a juice made with raspberries, or combine them with fresh peaches for a peach melba juice.
Romaine lettuce (Cos) Rinse leaves individually, checking for dirt and sand. Roll the leaves up and run through your juicer. Leafy greens move best through your juicer when followed by a harder fruit or vegetable, like apples, celery or cucumbers.
Scallions Just rinse and juice! No need to remove the roots or dark green parts because you can juice it all. These have a strong flavor, like onions, so start small.
Spinach Wash well because some bunches can have a lot of grit on them. Roll into a ball and run through your juicer using firm produce, like apples or carrots to help push the leaves through.
Squashes This goes for all squashes, including pumpkin and summer squashes: scrub and remove stem. If the skin is really tough and thick, you might want to peel it. Otherwise, slice and keep the seeds in (you get those extra cancer-fighting chemicals by keeping in the seeds), and juice.
Strawberries Delicious and sweet, they have a powerful flavor when you juice them – so just mix them with other berries, or maybe one or two other fruits. Just rinse and pop right in the juicer.
Sugar snap peas Rinse and run through juicer. These don’t have very high water content, so they’re not going to yield a lot of juice. Juice along with carrots to drink your peas and carrots!
Sweet potatoes Scrub and cut into chunks. Sweet potatoes make a delicious dessert juice.
Tangerines Peel and try to keep as much of the white pith on as possible since the pith contains nutrients that help your body absorb the vitamin C and other amazing antioxidants found in citrus fruits. Cut to fit your juicer and juice. You can keep the seeds in as they contain excellent nutrients too.
Tomatoes Wash and remove stem and any leaves. If they’re large, you may need to slice to fit your juicer. No need to take out the seeds. Fresh tomato juice is worlds away from that canned stuff!
Turnips Scrub and chop in chunks to fit your juicer. Turnips in a juice make a great drink for cooler weather when those tropical fruits aren’t in season!
Watermelon Makes an amazingly refreshing juice, especially in hot weather. Cut into wedges and remove the skin and rind. You can keep the seeds in.
Wheatgrass Some juicers are better at doing wheatgrass then others. If you’re just doing a small amount, any kind of juicer should be able to handle it. Rinse the wheatgrass, twist or roll into a ball, and push through with something juicy and firm, like apples. Gives a nice and strong green flavor to your juice, and provides lots of great green chlorophyll energy.
Zucchinis Scrub and cut off stem, but leave the other end on. These are great for pushing through greens.

 

Herbs & Spices

Herbs & Spices How to Prepare
Basil Carefully wash the leaves, removing any grit. If your basil seems very gritty, submerge in a bowl of cold water and swish around. Remove and rinse. To juice, tear the leaves off the stems and roll up. Push through with firmer produce.
Chinese 5-spice powder Don’t put this through your juicer!! Just sprinkle into your juice.
Cilantro (Coriander) Wash thoroughly. You can juice the stems and the leaves.
Cinnamon Don’t juice this either! Sprinkle ground cinnamon on juices with apple, pear and sweet potato.
Dill Rinse and pull the delicate fronds off the stem to juice.
Garlic The flavor is strong, and so are the benefits. Use fresh garlic and peel before running through juicer. Start with a small amount and taste your juice before adding more. Better to start small and add more than the other way around!
Ginger Peel your piece of ginger by cutting the size that you need for the juice and then take a spoon to peel the skin back. You can also use a knife to cut it but a spoon does the trick. Ginger doesn’t produce much juice but it does add a rich flavor so be careful not to go overboard.
Jalapeno (Chili pepper) Wash and juice. As you probably know, these are pretty spicy, so use with care!
Mint Wash thoroughly and remove leaves from stem before juicing. Goes great with pineapple, grapes, watermelon or strawberries.
Tarragon Gives a nice herbal flavor to vegetable juices. Wash and tear leaves off their woody stems before juicing.
Parsley Carefully wash the leaves, removing any grit. If it seems very gritty, submerge in a bowl of cold water and swish around. Remove and rinse. To juice, tear the leaves off the stems and roll up. Push through with firmer produce.

Thick Sliced Crinkle-Cut Hot Garlic Dill Pickles

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These thick crinkle-cut hot garlic dill pickles turned out great.  These are fresh from the field to the jar. Changes in the recipe explained briefly below also worked out great!  

Osage Farms in Dillard, Georgia is a real find.  When I first realized that the cucumbers they offered were authentically fresh from the field and that they had been picked within the hour, I knew I would have a top quality product to use for my hot garlic dill pickles.  Also offered along with the cucumbers were potatoes, various peppers (hot and mild), beets, peaches, cabbage, tomatoes (very wide variety), various squashes, tender ears of corn, okra, and soon apples.  All of their produce is top quality and fresh.

Recipe Changes

Since this last batch of pickles, prepared this past Saturday, was a fairly small batch of 12 quarts,  I ventured out in my recipe. This time around, I added a more generous portion of powdered cayenne along with a multi-fistful of dried hot chili peppers into the brine mix.  In the jars, to leave more room for pickles, I backed off on the amount of added flaked cayenne and dill.  I did add fresh dill weed sprigs to the jars along with fresh hot chili pepper rings, and whole dried cayenne peppers to the jars before I added the thick sliced, crinkle cut cucumber slices and covered them with the spicy brine. The pickles are not room temperature cured yet, so I have not tried them.  I hope they will be very good.

UPDATE: They are tastier and spicier than ever and the thicker slices make then crunchier.

The Osage Produce Stand is a wonder of fresh goodness in North Georgia close to the North Caroline state line on HWY 441.

The equivalency table I created for making various sized batch of pickles is a big help:

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It’s All Pickle Relish and It’s All Good!

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After a review of various recipes for chow-chow pickle relish and learning that there is no set recipe but more a list of loose guidelines or starting points from which to prepare your own. I realized that there is a great deal of latitude when preparing it. All items should be cut or chopped rather small. About 1/4 inch is about right and even smaller is okay too. In my list below, beans and corn do not need to be modified. The simplest relish can contains just a few of the above ingredients. I know someone who only zuchinni squash cut up into very small pieces for her relish which she called “cha-cha”. I knew right away that there is plenty of freedom to make changes – even in the name itself. So, it seems that pickle relishes not matter what you call them or how you make them evolve over time, but the various base ingredients stay relatively the same.

A list of possible vegetable ingredients for chow-chow:

  • Cabbage – red or green
  • Tomatoes Green or Ripe
  • Onions
  • Cucumbers
  • Squash
  • Bell Peppers – Green, Yellow, Red
  • Hot Peppers – Jalapeno, Serrano, Hot Chili, Tobasco
  • Celery
  • Cooked and Drained Kernel Corn
  • Cooked and Drained Beans – Pinto, White, or Black
  • Cilantro
  • Fresh Garlic Cloves
  • Horseradish (Louisianna Cajun style)

The base liquid is water, vinegar, sugar, and salt.

Along with these 4 main ingredients a variety of spices can be added:

  • Turmeric
  • Cayenne Powder
  • Flaked, Dry Cayenne
  • Garlic Powder
  • Allspice
  • Dry Garlic Flakes
  • Peppercorns – white and/or black
  • Dry Mustard
  • Celery Seeds or Celery Salt
  • Cumin
  • Coriander
  • Bay Leaves
  • Cinnamon

It seems that chutney and picalilli are all cousins to chow-chow and chutney may, in fact, be the parent of the other two. They all contain the same basic pickling “foundation” of water, salt, vinegar, and sweetener (sugar, honey, molasses). The ratios differ, but the base ingredients seem to be the same. There are minor and arguable difference between chow-chow and picalilli. Some say that picalilli has cauliflower and chow-chow does not. Others say that picalilli is cut up much finer than chow-chow. I call these minor differences. Chances are that there was a divide at some point from the original relish. It all may be a choice of name more than anything else.

More on Chutneys

6 Chow-Chow Recipes

Brine Cured Sour Pickles

Sour Fermented Pickles

  • Water .5 Gallon
  • Vinegar .5 Gallon
  • Salt .35 Cup

– 1 3/4 Cups Sea Salt
– 2 1/2 Gal Water
– 2 1/2 Cups Apple Cider Vinegar

1. Cut end off cucumbers and soak in brine
2. Mix the above ingredients until dissolved
3. Pour into crock over pickles
4. Weigh down cucumbers and make sure the brine covers them completely
5. Wait 2-3 weeks and check every so often for mold (skim mold off)

Smaller Amounts:

Approx. 2 Gallons:

– 1 Gallon Water
– 3/4 Heaping Cup Salt
– 1 Gallon Apple Cider Vinegar

Approx. 1 Gallon

– 1/2 Gallon Water
– 1/3 Heaping Cup Salt
– 1/2 Gallon Apple Cider Vinegar

This is an initial experiment where I utilized a 1 gallon ceramic crock and the equivalent ingredients above.  It should take a week or two for them to ferment properly.