Dill pickle taste test

In a word, "YUM"!

*What on Earth is he on about this time?*

See the previous post — here. I made my first-ever batch of dill pickles. I've had to wait a few days, and today it passed the taste test very well.

However, I do tell a fib-ette (which is not a full-blown lie). I am not a huge fan of dill pickles. For something to qualify for an exalted "YUM" it probably needs to be made of potato, but that's another blog posting altogether. However, I can report that my dill pickles taste like real ones, and I intend to eat some more over the coming days and weeks.

Thank you.

In a pickle with a glut of cucumbers

It seems like it was only weeks ago that I posted a blog about my newly planted little "Cutecumber" cucumber plants. And that's because it was only four weeks ago! My, how this thing has grown in our summer sunshine, and now it is producing Lebanese type cucumbers at an astonishing rate. Right now, I'm bringing in two cucumbers a day, and though Pammy is a world-class cucumber snacker, she's falling behind and the cucumber glut in our fridge crisper cabinet is growing.

The plant's label said "90-150cm" but I think that's the daily growth rate ...

Mind you, it's a handsome thing right now. A month from now, as February's deadly, oppressive humidity starts to hit, this lovely green foliage will probably be dusted with powdery mildew, despite my best organic efforts to prevent it.

Half the trick with harvesting the cucumbers is actually finding all of them. The plant's growth is so lush, meandering and complex that it's easy to miss fairly large cucumbers. Our lunch guests on Christmas Day managed to spot three cucumbers I hadn't noticed.

With all this excess produce mounting up (even after giving several away) there was only one way to cope: make pickles. And so that's what I did today. I've made two different types of pickles. One is a Sweet Danish Pickle which I've made a few times before and which I really like. The other is my first attempt at dill pickles. It's too early to know whether that batch has worked, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, here's the basics of the Danish Sweet Pickles ...

After washing three cucumbers, finely slice them. That white thing in the photo is a Zyliss slicer, which is hellishly nerve-wracking to use because it's so sharp, but if you are very careful and follow the safety guidelines, it makes quick work of three little cucumbers. Each slice is very thin, about 1-2mm.

As you transfer the slices to a bowl, sprinkle over some sea salt flakes. I added the cucumbers in about 3 layers, salting each layer as I went. Leave them to soak for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the pickling liquid, which is 1.5 cups white wine vinegar, half a cup of sugar, 5 bay leaves, 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seed, and 1 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns. To mix this up, just add the sugar to the vinegar in a few batches, stirring with a fork until the sugar dissolves. No heat is necessary, and the whole thing takes about 1 minute. So easy!

Next, rinse the salted cucumber slices under running water to remove the salt, drain in a colander, then gently squeeze dry. Divide the cucumbers into two small, sterilised jars, or pop them into one large sterilised jar.

Next, add the pickling liquid, along with the bay leaves and spices, to each jar (if using two). Seal the lids, pop them into the fridge and they are ready to eat by the evening (presuming you made them in the morning). Talk about easy.

If you think half a cup of sugar is way too much, the original recipe used one whole cup of sugar. I've experimented with 1/3 cup, 1/4 cup and I think 1/2 cup suits my tastebuds.

The original use for these pickles is as a "pickled cucumber salad" (agurk salat) to go with Danish pork and veal meatballs, called Frikadellers. While I still use them for that dish, these pickles are wonderful as part of lunchtime sandwiches, too.


Finally, the big experiment that has yet to end ... my first attempt at classic dill pickles. Now, the first thing I have learnt about this recipe is that there are only about a zillion dill pickle recipes out there (all authentic, of course).

The second thing I've learnt is that there is such a thing as "refrigerator" dill pickles, which means you can make up a little batch in a jar and pop them in the fridge. Wait a few days and they should be ready.

I am definitely not ready for Advanced Industrial Pickling yet — with all those scary jars with exploding sealed lids sitting in big pans of boiling water. So I like this idea of "refrigerator" dill pickles, it's far more peaceful. Here's what I did.

Sterilise the jar in boiling water, and wash three cucumbers. Slice off the ends of each cucumber, then slice lengthways into batons that are about one inch shorter than the jar.

Next, make up the pickling liquid, which is 1.5 cups water mixed with 1.5 cups apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons sea salt flakes, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Add this to a saucepan, heat this until the sugar and salt have dissolved, let it come to a gentle simmer, then turn off the heat and leave it all for half a hour to cool down.

To the bottom of the jar, add 1 peeled clove garlic, a sprig fresh dill and 1 teaspoon pickling spices mix (these are sold here in Oz in packs which contain mustard, peppercorns, allspice and dill seed). Then carefully stuff the jar full of cucumber batons. 

FInally, pour in the cooled pickling liquid, seal the jar, put it in the fridge and wait for three days. They should be OK to eat by then, but how would I know? My "three days" isn't up yet. I'll road test them in the New Year and let you know.

By the way, there is an alternative method for making these same refrigerator pickles, and the main difference is that you pour the very hot, simmering pickling liquid into the packed jar of cucumbers, then you let that cool down completely before refrigerating the jar. I wouldn't have a clue if that works, but I suspect it does because there's half a zillion recipes online which say to do it that way.

In the meantime, I hope 2017 is a very much better year for you than 2016 was, and I look forward to letting you know the exciting conclusion to my pickling experiments early in the New Year. See you then!

Volunteering for duty

This is the dream scenario for vegie gardeners: crops that plant themselves. Pictured below is my first-ever self-seeded lettuce baby, doing well this morning. 

And it's not on its own, either. There are four more almost identical siblings popping up in what is now my shallot patch, but I am sure those skinny people don't mind interlopers.

I do like the term for these self-planting vegies: "Volunteers". Prior to this I've had volunteer potatoes aplenty, tomatoes and strawberries too, but never any salad greens.

Now, how this all came about is due to my "lettuce tower" which I blogged about in October. I like letting some vegies live out a full life cycle, and it seems my purple lettuce tower not only flowered, but it also set seed which has now germinated. Woo hoo!

The cheapness of my thrills is appalling sometimes ...

But those yellow lettuce flowers did look nice against that purple backdrop.


Onto the next minor thrill ...

No, this is not a self-seeded story, this is just a story about a new plant developing crops very early in its life. Yes, another thrill, I'm afraid.

The problem for us with cucumbers is that the plants take up too much space, so I am always on the lookout for smaller growing versions. I spotted this "CuteCumber" at Bunnings a few weeks ago, and the "cute mini size" label had me sold the moment I saw it.

So I've set up a teepee over the seedling and it is powering along, a bit too much in fact for my liking. The label says its size is "90-150cm" and so I am really hoping for 90 but have a very nervous 150 feeling deep in my bones. Pam absolutely loves cucumbers, and so I am hoping to be able to provide some of this summer's supply for her.

Finally, another small beginning that is working out well. A while back I realised that when I didn't have any fresh chillies at home, I mostly bought the red, 10cm (4 inch) long chillies for cooking. And so a while back I opened up one of my supermarket 10cm chillies, saved eight seeds, sowed them in a punnet, and all eight seeds came up and turned into healthy plants. Chillies are like that. They really like life.

While all the familiar uses of chillies (chopped and tossed into everything from sambals to curries and stir-fries) are not worth mentioning yet again, one other way that I like to use those bigger, more gently heated chillies is in cooking tomato-based pasta sauces. For "a touch of chilli" I just toss one whole, uncut, unopened chilli into the sauce and let it slowly infuse a very gentle heat into the sauce, whether it's a vego tomato sauce or a meat-rich tomato sauce. Just before serving, lift out the soggy cooked chilli and discard. Lovely effect it gives to a tomato sauce, without making it "hot". 

Crop dusting

Anyone who grows their own vegetables soon learns that you can get a "glut" of produce from just one or two plants. In our case, that's especially true, as there are only two of us to feed and the plants are happy and well-fed. Like most vegie gardeners with a glut of goodies, we do the usual thing and give away our excess produce to family and friends.

Now, all that makes sense, so what I am doing trying to produce even bigger gluts by hand-pollinating the flowers on my eggplant and cucumber plants? Madness is the simple explanation, although gluttony might be more fitting — however "glutton for punishment" is bang on the mark.

We only have one eggplant plant and one cucumber plant here, and so I want each to be productive. But as far as the many bees in my garden are concerned, I am a deeply annoying, interfering busybody. My organic-gardening, bee-friendly heart might be in the right place, but my presence is simply not needed. My plants probably do not need to be hand-pollinated, the bees are doing that job well, and yet still I can't help myself.

This photo is a slight fudge, in that it was taken last year, but it shows what is happening right now in our garden. This native blue-banded bee is about one second away from landing on one of last year's eggplant flowers. I tried to get a shot of him in action this morning, but he moved too fast. As well as the native bees, we also have quite a few ordinary honeybees buzzing about.

So, why am I hand-pollinating my eggplant flowers? Well, last year I didn't think the conversion rate from flowers to fruit was all that crash hot. I know our garden has lots of other bee-attracting flowers, and maybe the short-lived eggplant blooms are low on the list of highly bee-attracting flowers? The bees just adore the salvias and frangipanis, and citrus and grevillea flowers always pull a crowd too ... but my totally unscientific observation is that our humble purple eggplant flowers don't seem so alluring. Last year's crop was not a glut!

And so I wandered into my garden shed, found a small hobby paintbrush, and wiggled it into each and every eggplant flower, hoping to pollinate every single one of them by transferring pollen from one flower to another. Time will tell if my gratuitous interference produces a better crop.

Of course the stupid thing is how can I tell if any eggplant baby is my handiwork or due to natural forces, such as the blue-banded bee? I can't!

The eggplant plant itself is happy and healthy, and so I just hope it has a good life here.

Most mornings we harvest a little bit of this and that. Here's our morning bowl-full of cucumber (1) Lebanese zucchini (4) and eggplant (1). Not exactly a glut, but you can't eat zucchini and eggplant every meal, and so they do build up, you eat out once or twice instead of cooking at home ... and before you know it you have three cucumbers, three eggplants, and a dozen or more zucchinis ...

Filled with enthusiasm, I got out another hobby brush and went all over our little cucumber plant. I am sure the ladybird cleaning up a spot of powdery mildew was wondering what I was up to. Interfering humans! Now, our cucumber bush is more than productive at the moment, so this "help" from me is utterly unnecessary. But did that stop me? Sadly, no. Just can't help interfering, especially when there is only one plant here.

Same deal here. Which of these baby cucumbers is my handiwork? I'll never know, and it doesn't matter, of course, as long as we get a good steady glut of too much produce!

Crop Watching

Gardeners often talk about how they notice climate change's subtle effects on plants in the patch under their care. I do, or at least sometimes I do. When flowers appear at weird times of year, crops appear much earlier or later than usual, you can't help but wonder if a change in the Earth's climate might have something to do with it ...

.... And then my whole theory is ruined by other plants operating like clockwork. This morning, the figs are ripening, bang on schedule. Last year I posted about them ripening on January 11, and this morning, January 11, there's several of them ripening up nicely, swelling to double normal size almost overnight, then turning reddy brown once fully ripe. That's almost far too clockworky for me — I think I might be growing climate denialist figs!

My figs, apparently, don't read the papers or listen to the evening news. As far as they are concerned, it's business as usual here in their latest Sydney summer. I love the way they tend to ripen one at a time from each branch cluster. Once we pick this one, another of those other little green ones on each brand will take its turn to ripen. Very orderly.

Pam is the fig aficionado around here, and it's her job to harvest them when she thinks they're at their peak. Of course she might bring the harvest ahead a day or two if our local birds start to show a perfectly healthy interest in a bit of beaky crop-theft.

Elsewhere, our crop watching is in full swing. This lumpy looking cucumber is a bit like a fig in that it suddenly swells up in size in just a few days. Two days ago it was a scrawny little spiky green, unpleasant looking thing half the size of this whopper. I suspect that by tomorrow morning it will be even larger and on our kitchen benchtop, ready to eat. All those yellow flowers around it are cucumber flowers, so I think we're going to have a cucumber glut on our hands by the end of the month.

Progress is more mauve coloured and genteel on the eggplant bush. It's sent out a dozen or so of its simple potato/tomato/eggplant family flowers, and hopefully our local busy bees will pay them a visit. (This is where the "no pesticides" part of organic gardening reaps its rewards — good numbers of bees, who pay their way in the scheme of things by providing a stack of crop-pollinating services.)

Here's a baby eggplant in its creche, starting to grow. These are the common variety 'Bonica', the familiar largish eggplants you see most commonly in the shops around here. 

I've got a whole posting to come about making ratatouille, but I'll save that up for a few weeks from now, when we harvest a few eggplants.