Standardby Julie6 Comments

I’ve been oddly addicted to dill pickles lately – as in, I’ve been eating my way through jars and jars of them, ice cold, straight from the fridge. Recycling last week was scary. And so I did not procrastinate this time when I came across bags of knobbly thumb-sized pickling cukes at the market – I bought the biggest bag I could ($22 worth-I may have overdid it) and W and I turned them into pickles the other night, after coming home from his cousin’s birthday dinner, before going to bed. Even when you have that much to work with, making pickles isn’t an all-day endeavor – it really isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. Start with the snappiest cukes possible – a bendy cucumber means a bendy pickle. Tuck a couple peeled garlic cloves and a big sprig of fresh dill into each clean jar (I like to run them through the dishwasher first), then pack in as many cucumbers as youContinue reading

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Standardby Julie34 Comments

I love what I learn from Twitter. I toss out questions into the Twitterverse and see what comes back. I ask how people use ingredients, what their favourite things to eat are, and settle dinnertime debates – the most recent: do they call it Kraft Dinner in the states, or just macaroni & cheese? The answer: KD is all Canadian – and we eat more of it than they do. My mind = blown.

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Standardby Julie11 Comments

It looks like a slice of brie tucked into the jar with the carrots – I assure you it’s not. It’s fresh ginger, a spur-of-the-moment addition inspired by David Lebovitz‘s mention of using ginger sugar in his batch. (From Paris to Tofino, connecting the world one pickle at a time.) I find myself now in the unusual position of trying to use up food before leaving Tofino to head home – among my targets were a bunch of carrots, forgotten in their crisper drawer in lieu of ice cream and fish & chips. And because all produce has pickle potential, I decided to do up a couple jars of them – one to take home and one to leave for whomever winds up at the house next. Pickling carrots is easy – and makes great use of all the wee finger-sized ones that are coming out of the ground right about now. You peel and blanch them, then dump out the water and add vinegar,Continue reading

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