Week 13, Non-Share Recipes, Half Sour Pickles & Pesto

Recipe 1
Half-Sour Pickles



Ingredients:
2 tsp. Pickling Spice.
1 Tbsp. dill weed
5-8 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup straight up salt
4 cups water
8-9 kirbies

Apparently there's such a thing as pickling salt. I found this out by browsing pickle sites online. Actually, when we called, Whole Foods carried pickling salt. But when I got there to pick some up, they didn't. Note to Whole Foods: carry pickling salt during pickle season. Whole Foods did, however, carry a sea salt without any additives; no iodine, no pourability chemicles, just NaCl. Picked it up.

Wash the pickles carefully and cut off any flower or stem remnants. Pack your jar as tight as possible. If you don't you're going to get some floaters, and you want the cukes to be completely covered to avoid spoiling during the whole process.

In another bowl, combine the water and pickling salt until the salt's totally dissolved.

Meanwhile, grind up the pickling spice with a mortar and pestle. I'm going to say, do it a couple of minutes, just to break up the spices a bit, you don't have to grind it to a pulp. Add mortar ingredients to the jar of cukes and then add the water right up to the top. Hopefully you don't get any floaters, but if you do, just try to jam 'em down with a clean finger. (I know... this is getting technical.)

Have a catchment bowl under the jar because it'll probably overflow a little. Let the pickles sit out at room temperature for 48 hours, uncapped. Then transfer to the fridge for another 24 hours, capped. Eat soonafter and enjoy.

PS. As you can see in the photos, we threw in the ton of peppers we got from a friend's backyard... Pickles tasted a little spicier in this batch. Only ate half a pepper though. It kind of went like, Hm, not bad. Ooooh a little spicy! OH MY GOD!!! GET ME SOME WATER!!!! HELP!!!!!!! I guess that's the downside to no labels.

Recipe 2
Pesto








These are our basil plants that we can't keep up with. I haven't collected any from our outside garden, and there is more than enough for a second batch from our window boxes already. Who wants some basil!?


2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts
3/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1 tsp. coarse salt
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Process first 4 ingredients in food processor to just short of a puree. Add Parm and process briefly again. Add 1/2 cup of oil while processing. If consistency is too thick, add more olive oil.