The sadly neglected blog

We've been busy growing and nurturing the garden and kiddos. It's really great to have so much maternity leave.

In the garden we are harvesting basil, cucumbers, snap beans, and zucchini about every other day. We still can find a few raspberries, and we really enjoyed it when they were coming in by the mixing bowl. We have had a few tomatoes, mostly the cherry size. Golden Nugget was our earliest harvest. It was a couple of days before the first zucchini! What's up with that?!

We have been making refrigerator pickles with the pickling cucumbers. It's so easy, and really yummy. Here's the recipe [my comments in brackets]:

GARLIC DILL PICKLES (REFRIGERATOR) (originally found on Cooks.com)
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Make brine: (do not cook)

2 qts. water [I use it out of the Brita pitcher b/c it cuts the hardness down]
3/4 c. salt (kosher) [key is non-iodized, so sea salt or cheapie non-iodized=ok]
2 c. cider vinegar [white distilled vinegar works just fine, too]

Rinse pickles [I rub them to get off the spines. For pickling cukes, you want them to be warty still, and not so big that they have turned yellowish or white. Those big guys will have too many seeds and may be kind of hollow inside. Just compost those or eat them yourself in salad.], slice [I only slice if they are big, otherwise I leave them whole] and put in jars with garlic [I put 2 smashed cloves per quart] and dill [I put a couple of good pinches of dill weed per quart] to
taste. Mix salt, water and vinegar and pour over pickles filling jars. (Any large jars will do.) Leave pickles at room temperature for 3 days [write yourself a note to remember when to put in the fridge]. Refrigerate after that.

Obviously, you can use your math skills to cut it down. An online converter could help with the cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons of the reduction. I posted the recipe in several versions (full, half, 1/4 and 1/8) on the side of the fridge so that just about anyone can make these.

But I didn't want to neglect mentioning The Breastfeeding Cafe which opens TOMORROW, August 1, at the Downtown City Library. Here's a related news story. The Cafe is a wonderful outreach activity put on annually by the Utah Breastfeeding Coalition and La Leche League. Stop on by to learn more about breastfeeding, share your experiences, and support our smallest citizens.