Homemade Pickles

You never know what you are going to find at the farmer's market. Last Saturday, we made a lucky discovery in the form of pickling cucumbers. Needless to say, we had to get them, and we had to make pickles.

These small cucumbers cost us only $2 dollars, and the rest of the ingredients weren't much more. We also got a bulb of fresh garlic for 50cents, sprigs of dill free from our garden, and already had an onion back in our rooms.

The first step to making pickles, according to the dozen or so websites and recipes we looked at, is to find a big jar to pickle them in. If you don't have a large jar readily available (we didn't),  then a bowl works just as well.

Step one, chop up the garlic and dill and place it in the bottom of the bowl. No measuring involved, we just put stuff in until it looked like enough.

Step two, add about half an onion chopped in large pieces to the bowl. On top of the onion, add the pickling cucumbers.

Step three, add sugar, salt, and vinegar. Most recipes said about 1/3 - 1/2 cup of sugar and salt, and approximately 2 cups white vinegar. Of course, we had forgotten the measuring cups and were too lazy to go get them. We estimated what we used to be about a 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup sea salt, and a little less than 2 cups of vinegar.  We then topped off the bowl with about 2 cups of water.

Step four, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator. Make sure to stir or shake (if you have a jar) the pickles at least once a day if not more often. It will take a few days, but soon they will taste just like dill pickles!

We made these on a Saturday, and by the following Thursday, we had already eaten half the batch. They were just that good!