Positively pickled

I think my house smelled like dill pickles for a week after this.

Dilly beans
Dilly beans

It started with garlic dills and dilly beans.

Garlic dills
Garlic dills

And then I bought more cucumbers for making relish. But I had way, way too many. So they became sliced garlic dills, with some added chili to kick them up a notch.

Spicy sliced garlic dills
Spicy sliced garlic dills

I made only a half batch of relish last year to see how we liked it. It was so great I made a full batch this year.

Homemade cucumber relish
Homemade cucumber relish

And for the first time this year I’ve had success with chard. I have no idea why it didn’t cooperate in the past. But this summer there is an abundance of this lovely stuff.

Rainbow Swiss Chard
Rainbow Swiss Chard

Summer is wonderful.

2 Comments

  1. Brian says:

    Wow, those look amazing! Do you have a recipe I could have for those garlic dills? I want to go to the market and make a batch this weekend.

  2. admin says:

    I just use the fresh-pack dill recipe from the Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving book but there are gazillions of versions of that basic recipe out there. Some examples are here and here. My version adds in a couple peeled cloves of garlic, and if you want to add some bite, just put in about a 1/4 tbsp of chili flakes. I find chili flakes are pretty potent when canned — more so than when eaten just dry or cooked in food, so go easy — it’s very easy to overdo it. I also add a dried bay leaf to each jar. Have fun!

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