Cooking with Chef Jo: Cheater's Pickles

I planted Boston pickling cucumbers this year. In fact, it's the only cucumber I've ever grown in my garden. Whether I'm making pickles, slicing them in a salad, cooking, or dehydrating them, they work for me.

Their small lengths are perfect for a salad for four ,or two if you gave a salad hog in the family. I'm he salad hog on this homestead. Three quarters of my plate is piled high with the fresh vegetables leaving only a small spot left for a chicken thigh or a piece of chuck steak.

Mel doesn't like to eat fresh cucumbers but she loves pickles. For a year's worth, Our homestead will go through a case of pints each of bread and butter, and dill pickles. That's not including the case of pints jars of pickled relish, because I make that out of zucchini. It's a far cry from the 3 cases of quarts jars of each that I use to make with yougens under foot, but it's just enough to see us through a year. I rarely make more than 18 months worth a harvest because my cucumber pickles texture changes. One day I might try a new recipe that will have a longer shelf life, but not this year. There just isn't the time to try one. My learning curve is much slower these days and I've used my recipes for over forty years.

Out of the 94 recipes I've posted, I can't remember which recipes posted. EEK! I believe I've posted my zucchini relish and bread and butter pickles here, or did I just do videos of them? ARGH! CRAFT (can't remember a frazzling thing) is hitting me harder as each year passes. I don't have time to look at each canning blog right now. What to do, what to do?

You want a recipe. That's that's why you stopped by today. Okay, I'll do this. What if you are not a gardener. Or, you run out of your homemade pickles and need more but you don't want store bought  pickles with all those chemicals in them. You don't have a pot big enough to can your own pickles. You don't have/can't buy all the spices that go into pickle making. What do you do?

The answer is Cheater's Pickles! All you need is small or pickling cucumbers from the grocery store and the brine mix of the pickle you loved. Watch this video to learn how.

So now you know. Stretch that dollar until it screams. Whether you use your brine or store bought pickle brine, you can repeat this process only once. After that, the flavor is reduced with each remake.  But it will get you through while you are wanting for your cucumbers yo come in. We had fun playing with this video. Hope you enjoyed it. Me, I'm in the kitchen making...you guessed it, pickles. The whole house smells like a pickle factory, which it is.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo