Ingredients

• 4 cups water
• 2 cups white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 1/2 cucumbers (halved then sliced into spears)
• fresh dill
• 4-5 cloves of garlic (crushed)
• 10 peppercorn kernels

Instructions

1. In a medium pot, on high, combine water, vinegar, salt and sugar– dissolve. Bring the brine to a boil, then set aside and let cool to room temperature.
2. In a canning jar, add brine, dill, garlic and peppercorn along with sliced cucumbers then seal.
3. Place in fridge for a week.
4. With patience you will be able to enjoy for up to 5-6 weeks in the fridge (if they can make it that long)!

Inspired by

This was a really simple recipe to follow. The original recipe used baby canning cucumbers, where I used fully grown cucumbers. Also, my peppercorns were quite old, so I added nearly doubled the amount.

Closing

I never pickled before, and this was a rather leisurely recipe. Well, any pickling, I suppose is leisurely, after it’s prepared at least! It was fun to do, and they tasted great! Another added bonus, that most people do not realize, is that food colouring is added to store bought most often. This recipe, does not have any unnecessary food additives!

Originally, I was trying to use baby cucumbers, but each time I either ate them all or misread the expiration label and they went bad before I could make it. Or the dill went bad, sheesh, I was quite unorganized by this recipe. So when the last batch of baby cucumbers went bad, I just picked up a couple fully grown cucumbers and they worked quite well cut into spears.

I would like to change it up in the future, such as making it more sweet or moving away from dill and garlic and adding different vegetables to the brine.

What will you decide to pickle?