Pickles

A few weeks ago, we bought some cherry bomb peppers from Farmer Jeff at Peachtree Rd FM. And then, a week ago, we bought some more. They held up surprisingly well in the veggie drawer. So I decided to pickle them, especially so since L+H said that everyone in their family likes pickled cherry bomb peppers, even those who don't like hot stuff.

I originally was going to use H's recipe, but because H is a chef and therefore doesn't really have recipes, I ended up using the recipe for the whole peppers I use for jalapenos from the Joy of Pickling. We have two pints and two half pints. In three weeks, we will see how they turn out.

Months ago, I bought some beets with the intent to pickle or roast them, and they've been sitting in the veggie drawer ever since. I'm surprised that they have lasted so long. Karen at my office recently pickled some beets and they were good. So I decided to finally pickle my beets. I covered everything in saran wrap and then wore plastic gloves. Still, I got some juice onto the cutting board but it wiped right up.

Some of the beets weren't as soft as I would have liked but I didn't know that til I cut them up. It was happily easily to make the beets. I had been dreading them which is why I hadn't made them yet. Actually, the covering of everything (the part I had been dreading) was easy. It was dealing with hardened brown sugar that ended up being the pain.

The Joy of Pickling recipe calls for cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and a mix of light brown and white sugars. It smelled really tasty. We have one quart and two pints. We'll see how those turn out in three weeks also. The fridge is full again.