Cucumbers

 

It's not just quail eggs we have in abundance; this year's cucumber crop has been wonderful!

This year we have focused a new-to-us variety of Japanese cucumbers.  They look more like English cucumbers (the kind you find wrapped in plastic at the grocery store) than like the traditional pickling cucumbers.  

The taste is a cross between cucumber and a melon and the seed cavity does not get big with hard seeds like so many do when they get too large.   

These have been a popular curiosity at the market each week but the harvest has been so big I have also been busy pickling them.

I use pickling recipes from the University of Georgia Extension Service cookbook, So Easy To Preserve.  These recipes are nationally recognized as the safe gold-standard.  In Alabama, all pickled and fermented recipes for sale must be tested for a safe pH unless they come from this source.  Thus all my pickled (and truly all my canning) comes from this book.

Our favorite recipe is the 14-day sweet pickles.  Yes, it really does take a full 14 days!  They also have a "quick" 7 day recipe (canning humor), but this one is the best in our opinion.  

These pickles are sweet, so if you prefer a dill or a kosher you may not like this one as much.  

Several years ago Cletus was diagnosed with a corn allergy.  Unfortunately, white distilled vinegar has the potential to be contaminated with corn.  Fortunately, apple cider vinegar is not.  Apple cider vinegar has the same acidity as distilled, thus it is safely substituted in this recipe (I called UGA and confirmed this).  So my 14-day pickles have a little bit of an apple-cider vinegar kick to them.

The 14 days completed Monday of this week, so we will have a limited amount of these at the market this week.  

As the season progresses the Japanese cucumbers will die out but we are doing second plantings with more traditional cucumbers and we will have those available.  Any you do not purchase will be turned into pickles and then be available 2 weeks later.