Easy Dill Pickles
These babies will change your life--or at the very least, they will totally up your condiment game. If you think you can't make pickles, or that you have to can/process them, you are oh-so-wrong. You can make pickles in 5 minutes that you will be able to enjoy for 2 weeks (if you can keep them around that long). I grew up eating homegrown cucumbers quickly pickled in vinegar with some onion, salt, and pepper on nearly every summer dinner table. It's just something my family loves, and my husband and I often eat them this way now. If you want the best summer meal--in my humble opinion--you need cucumbers and onions alongside fresh corn on the cob dripping with butter, and a BLT with homegrown tomatoes on some fabulous bread. Nothing better. So, the other day as I hauled in nearly TWENTY cucumbers from my garden in one gathering, I figured I needed to do something a bit longer lasting than our usual quick pickles. I consulted google and quickly decided on a recipe from smitten kitchen. It is no exaggeration that you will have these in the fridge in 5 minutes of beginning the process. If you have a food processor with a slicer blade? Make it 2 minutes. Set your timer and get to work, kids. You have pickles to make.
Easy Dill Pickles
-from smittenkitchen.com
- seedless cucumbers or kirby cucumbers. If you use kirby cucumbers, they are smaller and you will prob need 8-10. I made a whole jar of pickles with only two of our large seedless (ie burpless) cucumbers. Just grab a few cucumbers, OK? You'll know you have enough when you fill up a quart jar. Get some from your neighbor with a garden, from me, or from your farmer's market.
- 1 T. kosher salt
- 1 t. dill seed, or 1 T chopped fresh dill--the only fresh dillweed I found at the store was grown in Peru (none of this in my garden, and I couldn't wait the 3 days until the farmer's market), which felt super wrong to me considering I'm using my own cucumbers and want the homegrown feel. So, I used dried dill seed.
- 1/2 cup white vinegar
Slice the cucumbers super thin (I think mine were about 1/8" with the smallest blade setting on the processor), or thicker if you want. Fill up a quart jar with cukes, add in your dill seed or weed, salt, and pour vinegar over the top. Put the lid on, shake a bit to mix up, and then throw the jar in the fridge. After a few hours the cukes will release all their water and the brine will cover the pickles, so don't panic--I know you will ask if it's OK if your brine doesn't cover the cukes at first. The answer is it is a-OK! After 8 hours in your fridge, your pickles are ready to consume. You did it!