I made that!

I’ve been fascinated by pickles for a while. Mostly because I don’t like them. But I feel like they’re a beautiful food craft that I appreciate, so there’s got to be a way to make pickles that I’m into. I’m not much a sour fan, so that makes it a bit tricky. I’ve been reading about a technique of “pickling” veggies with a salt brine instead of vinegar and thought I’d give that a whirl. What I learned is that pickling is extremely easy. Not that everything else I make is so terribly complicated, but seriously, anyone can make pickles.

I tried to make it more challenging by spending more time than necessary slicing perfect batons out of my carrots. Or at least as perfect as I felt I could get without wasting obscene amounts.

Then I made the brine by boiling water, salt, ginger, peppercorns & a dried chile. I wasn’t really sure if a dried chile works, but that’s what I had…

I let the brine cool to room temp and then poured it over my carrots that were waiting in some clean jars.

I let them hang out on my counter for a week and just cracked them open today.

The verdict: Meh. Kinda salty. Maybe I just don’t like pickles. except pickled pepperoncini. I LOVE pickled pepperoncini. Maybe I’ll try that next time. Anybody want some pickles?