Cucumber plants have arrived and the time is right for planting for summer salads and pickles.
Cucumbers are great for making a Greek salad with tomatoes, olive oil, onions, Greek olives and feta cheese.
Cucumbers also make super simple and very tasty refrigerator pickles. Set sliced cucumbers, sliced onions, a few cloves of garlic, fresh dill and a touch of pepper. Pour salt water brine over the cucumbers to cover, then place in the fridge for at least a day, but up to a week, then open and enjoy.
Growing your own cucumber means you harvest your crop just minutes or hours before serving a salad or creating a batch of pickles. The taste difference between fresh and store – bought can be significant.
Try any cucumbers , but one of our favorite cucumbers is the lemon cucumber, available from seed or starts through early summer.
Recipe for Refrigerator Pickles
We have loosely followed the recipe for refrigerator dill pickles from the website called, browneyedbaker.com/quick-easy-refrigerator-dill-pickles/, varying the ingredients based on what we have around and how many cucumbers we have to work with.
For Each Quart Jar:
Cut up about 1.5 pounds of cucumbers into slices or wedges. (Lemon cukes have become our favorite).
In the bottom of each jar add the following:
- 2-4 cloves of garlic, smashed or sliced
- 1 heaping teaspoon of black peppercorns
- A couple of pinches of red pepper flakes, or use small sliced pieces of hot peppers from the garden to taste.
- 3-4 sprigs fresh dill or a teaspoon of dill seeds
Fill the jar with Cucumbers and add slices of white onion too if you like. Work a few more sprigs of dill in over the pickles.
Mix the following and pour over the pickles to cover:
- 2 cups water
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sea salt – dissolved in the brine
Put a lid on it and refrigerate at least a day. We set them in the fridge upside down so the spices work down through the pickles.
These are so good it’s hard to keep them from disappearing.
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