On Monday evening my friend Lorene and I split a bottle of wine and made pickles and sauerkraut. I highly recommend starting your week off this way. Putting away food and getting a little silly really go quite well together!

Lorene is one of those super creative, crafty people who always has something up her sleeve (you may remember the fabulous cold frames she made out of old IKEA bookcases). She has an adorable vegetable garden and she is also the author of the newly released Canning and Preserving Your Own Harvest (2009 Sasquatch Books).

As soon as I heard Lorene’s book was out, I invited myself over to her house for a little one-on-one food preservation lesson. Since the thermometer on her back porch registered 85 degrees, we decided to forgo turning on the stove and instead made fermented pickles and sauerkraut.

It’s so simple! All we did was put some cucumbers, fresh dill flowers, garlic, and a hot pepper in a huge jar and then poured brine over the top. To help the cucumbers stay submerged in the brine, we stuck a small clean plate on top of them and then filled a clean plastic Ziploc bag with water and placed it on top of the plate as a weight. Voila! The pickles are in progress.

They should be ready to eat in about 3 weeks—at which point we can either can them or stick them in the fridge where they will stay fresh for months! Lorene was kind enough to share this pickle recipe from Canning and Preserving Your Own Harvest. Try it! Just be sure to invite over a few friends. And have them bring a bottle of wine.

Old-Fashioned Crock Pickles
Crock pickles cure in a saltwater solution by means of fermentation caused by lactic acid bacteria, a cloudy film or scum that floats on the surface of the brine. Naturally, in this day and age of sanitation and concern about harmful microorganisms, this scum appears somewhat suspect. In fact, lactic acid is responsible for changing the pickles from bright green to an olive or yellow green and produces the characteristically tart, sour flavor we associate with pickles.

For every 5 pounds of cucumbers you will need one gallon of pickling capacity; for example, a 5-gallon crock will hold 25 pounds of cucumbers. Select a ceramic crock, large glass jar, or food-grade plastic container; do not use a metal pot, as it will negatively react with the vinegar.

Season: Mid- to late summer
Yield: 4 quarts
Store: Cool, dark pantry

For every gallon of finished pickles you’ll need:
4 to 5 pounds clean, unwaxed, firm cucumbers about 4 to 6 inches long
2 tablespoons dill seed or 4 to 5 heads fresh dill weed
2 cloves garlic
2 dried red peppers
8 cups water
1/2 cup pickling salt
1/4 cup vinegar
2 teaspoons whole mixed pickling spices

Carefully pick through the cucumbers and discard any that are bruised or have soft spots; wash well. Place half of the dill, 1 clove garlic, and 1 pepper at the bottom of your clean crock. Add the cucumbers and the remaining dill, garlic, and pepper.

Bring the water, salt, vinegar, and pickling spice to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow this brine to cool completely before pouring over the cucumbers in the crock. Weight a dinner plate or a glass pie plate with a heavy-duty, food-grade plastic bag filled with water and place in the crock to keep the fermenting pickles at least 2 inches below the surface of the brine.

Store the crock of cucumbers at room temperature; fermentation will take longer to complete under cool temperatures, whereas excessively warm temperatures will result in soft pickles. Check the crock daily and skim any scum that appears. A clean cloth draped over the crock will keep out dust and other contaminants. Complete fermentation for “full sours” will take about 3 weeks; however, you can remove pickles from their brine before that if you prefer what are known as kosher-style or half-sours.

Fully fermented pickles covered with brine may be refrigerated in jars for months or canned for stable shelf storage. To can the pickles, pour the brine into a pan, heat slowly to a boil, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Fill hot sterile pint or quart jars with pickles and top with hot brine, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Brine may be strained through a clean cloth or paper coffee filter to reduce cloudiness, if desired. Place lids on the filled jars and process in a water bath: pints for 15 minutes, quarts for 20 minutes.

From Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest by Carla Emery & Lorene Edwards Forkner, 2009 Sasquatch Books