vodka
Yup, another post about that pickle juice vodka I made that isn’t so great. It wasn’t my intention to write another post but a comment from Nancy on the last post prompted this one.
Nancy said, “Did you think about pouring some of the vodka back into the pickles to have “pickled” pickles? Maybe for Bloody Marys?”
Actually, I’d not only thought of it, but I’d already done it. Although I didn’t pour the vodka back over the pickles, I poured it over the contents of this jar of mixed vegetables I had picked up at World Market. As you can see in the photo, the vegetables are packed in safflower oil. The oil taste and smell were unappetizingly strong. Seriously strong, when I opened the jar, I gagged a little. No, the oil had not gone rancid, you can see the “use-by” date is 2021. It was just Very fragrant!
I used part of the contents in a Custom Installation of Harmony Boards earlier this month. To make them taste and smell good, I drained off the oil, patted them as dry as I could get them, and then rinsed them in apple cider vinegar. That worked. They are on the rectangular dish in the photo above.
[Read more →]March 29, 2019 1 Comment
end of the season
One of Les Gourmettes Cooking School’s longtime students, Marilyn, brought in a huge box of green tomatoes to share with the class. I brought home a couple of pounds of them myself. My lone remaining tomato plant yielded the three tomatoes with the stems that you see in the photo below.
I’ve posted the recipe for fried green tomatoes previously, so this time I’m turning them into the deli delicacy – pickled green tomatoes. If you love these crunchy, thick-walled, salty, sour, spicy treats as I do, just wait until you see how easy they are to make at home. If you want to learn a little more about the fried tomato recipe, it pairs really well with a fresh feta salad, especially during the BBQ season.
This “refrigerator pickle” technique is basically foolproof. No lengthy temperature-critical fermentation and no sterile canning (although the jars and lids need to be cleaned with boiling water first). And they must be kept refrigerated. The best part is that the refrigerator pickled green tomatoes remain crunchy. Pasteurized pickled green tomatoes get mushy.
It is important that the tomatoes are firm and completely green, with no bits of orange or red and no mushy green tomatoes! I have labeled four of the jars and will be giving them as Christmas gifts.
December 19, 2011 2 Comments