I was told at one point there is a legal pickle at Trader Joe's. They were called half sour dills with whole spices in the jars. So far, I have never found them, but if you do... they're accepted as legal by the SCD populace.
On to my recipe!
You might want to cut the brine recipe in half if you are not making a lot. I found that if I stuffed a quart jar with cucumbers, I needed 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 1/2 cups water (and thus 1 1/2 tsp salt). So that is 1/4 of the recipe. At least I think it was a quart jar. Now it is full of pickles, so I can't check.
MY REFRIGERATOR PICKLE RECIPE
2 cups apple cider vinegar (or distilled white vinegar, wine vinegar, whatever you want)
4 cups cold water
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon dried dill (or fresh sprigs of dill)
pickling cucumbers, cut into spears (peeled if you're still symptomatic)
whole peeled garlic cloves (if you want)
Mix up the vinegar, cold water, and salt. Peel if you are still peeling your veggies to cook them.
Cut cucumbers into spears or rounds or whatever. Toss in the jar with the dill and garlic, and refrigerate. Ready in about 10 days.
I found pickling cucumbers at my local grocery store, but I live in a really strange ethnic neighborhood, so I can't say that they're available everywhere. I'm told the dark green ones with lots of warty spots are the freshest. As you can see from the photos, the ones I got are not the freshest. But they still worked fine! I just picked the ones that felt really hard.
Heh.
My not-fresh pickling cucumbers
Here you can see our very big pickle jar in progress. This jar holds half a gallon I think. I needed the whole brine recipe and then some for it. Luckily you can do the math and cut it down or multiply as needed. Well, at least I hope you can. I can't really assume. One time while I was working retail, these 11-year-olds asked me how much 50 percent off a pair of earrings was. After I finished laughing, I realized they were serious. And then I was sad.
See? Dill bits abound.
The fresh sprigs of dill are a much better idea than the dried. The dried dill sticks to the pickles and then you have to worry about dill in your teeth. A social faux pas if ever there was one.
Finished jar, ready for refrigeration!
So there you have it. You can start eating the pickles in about 10 days. Anything before that, they don't really taste much like pickles. They will become more pickle-like as time goes on. The brine and pickles should keep for about a month after the 10-day period.
Oh, and I did have a pickle helper...
He hasn't exactly been behaving lately, so he hasn't had a chance to try them. But I am sure he will be thrilled when he does. :)
Enjoy!
