When life gives you cucumbers, make pickles
This past summer my family grew a garden. We wanted to try to grow some of our own food.
When we first planted the vegetables in early June they were just tiny little things that you could hardly see sticking out of the dirt. By the middle of July we knew we had green thumbs. It was very productive. We grew cauliflower and brussels sprouts and hot and sweet peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers and butternut squash.
The cauliflower heads got about the diameter of a basketball, but the plant that it grows on is huge, about the size of a laundry basket. Four cauliflower plants just about took over our small garden.
Our two cucumber plants also went crazy. The vines invaded the rest of the garden and shaded our onions so much the onions couldn't grow. Many days we'd pick almost a dozen cucumbers; once we got 15.
We gave cucumbers away to some of our neighbors and made salads out of some of the others. And we still had so many left. So we made pickles.
I like pickles because they're salty, sweet and sometimes sour. I like to put them on hot dogs and burgers and put them in a sandwich I call a pickle wrap. Layer a couple slices of deli ham or turkey on a flour tortilla and sprinkle it with grated cheddar cheese, but not all the way to the edge. Put a pickle spear or two along the edge closest to you and roll it up. You can also make this with pickle slices; just put them in a single layer near the middle of the tortilla.
A word from Mom: Jerome and I first made pickles a year ago with pickling cucumbers we got from a local produce store. When we planned our garden in the spring we knew cucumbers would be part of our plot.
The pickles we make are called “quick” or “refrigerator” pickles. We started with a Rachael Ray recipe and tweaked it as we made over the batches. We've made both slices and spears and we've made them with the smaller pickling cucumbers and with the longer variety.
Since these pickles don't go through the water-bath canning process they're not shelf-stable and should be eaten within a few months.
I like putting the pickles into smaller jars so we can share them with friends and family and teachers and coaches.
ŸJerome Gabriel is in the sixth grade and has been helping in the kitchen since he could hold a spoon. His mother, Deborah Pankey, is the food editor for the Daily Herald.