The great thing about pickled vegetables is your ability to use any variety of fresh veggies you have on hand. While leafy greens won’t work so well (besides cabbage), you can really get creative with what’s fresh, local and, possibly, growing in your own garden. Use this mixed pickled vegetables recipe as a baseline, adding or subtracting veggies to suit your taste.

Pickled Vegetables Recipe

Yields about 5 pints

Ingredients

1 and 1/4 pounds pickling cucumbers 3 to 4 inches in length, sliced ½-inch thick (cut off and discard both ends of the cucumbers)
2 cups fluted carrot slices cut ½ inch thick (use a fluted garnishing cutter)
2 cups celery slices cut diagonally ½ inch thick
2 cups trimmed and peeled pearl onions
20 strips red bell peppers cut ½ inch wide by 3 inches long (about 2 large peppers)
3 cups small cauliflower flowerets (about 1 small head of cauliflower)
16 cups cold, distilled water
1 cup canning salt
2 cups sugar
¼ cup mustard seed
2 tablespoons celery seed
6½ cups white vinegar (5 percent acidity)

Directions

THE FIRST DAY: in an 8-quart, stainless steel kettle, place the prepared cucumbers, carrots, celery, onions, peppers, and cauliflower; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, place the distilled water and canning salt; stir until the salt dissolves. Then, pour the salt water over the vegetables in the kettle. Cover the kettle; let stand, in a cool place, 12 to 18 hours.

12 TO 18 HOURS LATER: Drain the vegetables thoroughly; set aside.

In a clean, 8-quart, heavy-bottomed, stainless steel kettle, place the sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, and vinegar; stir to combine. Over medium-high heat, bring the vinegar mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Cover the kettle. Reduce the heat and boil the vinegar mixture 3 minutes. add the vegetables. Cover the kettle and return the mixture to a simmer.

Simmer the vegetables, covered, 5 minutes. Remove from the heat; let stand.

Drain hot, sterilized, widemouthed, pint jars with straight sides, upside down, on a clean tea towel.

Decoratively arrange the vegetables (without liquid) in the jars, leaving ½-inch headspace.

Using a 1-cup measuring cup with a pouring spout, cover the vegetables in the jars with the hot vinegar mixture, maintaining ½-inch headspace.

Using a plastic knife or a narrow, rubber spatula, remove the air bubbles in the jars. Then, check the headspace in each jar and if necessary, add additional hot vinegar mixture to maintain ½-inch headspace. Wipe the jar rims and threads.

Place hot, metal lids on the jars and screw the bands firmly.

Process in a boiling-water canner for the time shown in the processing times chart at the end of this recipe.

Remove the jars from the canner and place them on a dry, wooden board that has been covered with a tea towel. Let

the jars stand, undisturbed, 12 hours to cool completely.

Processing times for pint and quart-size jars

Altitude of Canning Location
0 to 1,001 ft above sea level: 15 minutes
1,000 ft 6,000 ft: 20 minutes
6,000 ft and higher: 25 minutes

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In a Pickle: Cucumbers, Okra and Green Beans

Recipe courtesy of Blue Ribbon Country Canning Cookbook by Diane Roupe.

Photos by Erin Scott (Egg & Dart Press, 2013).

The post Blue Ribbon Country Canning: Pickled Vegetables Recipe appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnAn interview with a professional fermenter and how to make your own sauerkraut.

You’ve been making your own kombucha for months (ok, years) and pickling is old news to you, but have you taken your fermented food obsession to the next level? Grabbed a slot at the local market and opened up a stand to sell your goods? Spend any time at your weekend farmers market and you’re sure to find an artisan pickle, kraut or kim chi maker.

“We can pickle that,” might be the mantra of any lover of the television show Portlandia, but all jokes aside, fermented foods are good for you (and often served in mason jars). Making fermented foods at home however is one thing, running your own fermented business is quite another.

“You should start a restaurant/catering company/baking business/etc.” are words that many a foodie have heard from a friend or two, but turning a passion for food into a business is a feat in and of itself, which is why it’s inspiring to meet people that are doing just that. I perked up recently when I got an intro to the co-founder of what a friend called “the most elegant pickle company on the planet.” When you’re the Foodie Underground columnist, you just can’t turn such an introduction down.

The pickle company is called Esoteric Food Company, based in Boulder, Colorado and responsible for jars of fermented goodness like Beets, Hijiki & Kale and Dill, Caraway & Cabbage. As they put it:

We love food. Learning about food culture is our impetus, our drive and our reward. We live to tinker with, to savor, to understand flavor and nutrition in old and new ways. We simply love making good things to eat to share with others and these pickles are our way of inviting you in to the esoteric circle.

If there ever was an intriguing food mission statement, that might just be it.

I caught up with co-founder Willow King to learn more about the fermentation business and we even got a recipe out of the deal.

Tell us about your food background, what got you into fermented foods in the first place?

My business partner Mara grew up in Hong Kong and is a long time sushi chef and general food goddess. She and I started getting together for “Food Mondays” about 2 years ago and making things that were hard, weird or that we just generally curious about. We made raw cheeses, butter, sausage, sourdough, we canned and we fermented. Something about the ferments sort of just took over (no pun intended) and we have been doing them ever since. We have a mutual friend in town who has grown many businesses from Karaoke bars to energy drinks and he encouraged us to take it to the wholesale level. Mara and I are both English majors and at the time I was teaching Literature and Mara was teaching yoga and getting ready to give birth to her third child. It seemed like a bit of a pipe dream, but we starting tinkering with label designs, jar options, a website and pretty soon we had a business on our hands.

You have everything from carraway to kale… how do you come up with your recipes?

Our recipes come from both Asian and Euro traditions- Korean, Japanese, Polish, Scandinavian, German. They are a pastiche of flavors from our past and new combinations. This week’s market specials were daikon and d’anjou pear kim chi, juniper berry kraut and brined baby carrots with dill.

Why do you think fermented foods have had such a revival? 

Fermented foods are a really great metaphor. They are a sort of alchemy that you can eat and I think people are really waking up the fact that sanitized, factory made, processed foods have lost a lot of their magic by the time they make it to your mouth. There is a growing awareness and live, raw, organic foods can balance and support our immune and digestive systems, as well as boost our moods.

You are certainly part of a growing movement of artisan food makers. In a world of mass marketed foods and big businesses, why do you think “underground” businesses like yours are seeing such success and positive response? 

We know so many amazing food crafters- bakers, jam makers, kombucha and jun brewers- you name it. It is really encouraging to see these small businesses thriving and really being supported by their communities. In many ways, we are just going back to what we have always known: Good food is simple and comes straight from the source. We like to know who is making what we are eating- it is the oldest form of food safety!

How does one get started doing their own fermented foods?

Fermenting vegetables is a pretty simple process and very fun to experiment with. Fermenting dairy and meats can be a bit more complicated and requires exact procedures and temperatures to be safe. If you are interested in experimenting we recommend starting with simple sauerkraut and then expand from there.

Recipe: Simple Sauerkraut

To begin you will need a ball jar, 1 medium cabbage, sea salt and starter like whey or for a vegan option you can use kombucha. Each starter produces different results and flavors so you can try a few and find the one you like best.

Core and shred the cabbage and then spread on a tray or work surface. Pound the cabbage with a wooden hammer (or a rolling pin can work) until the juices start to release and the cabbage softens. Place in a wide mouth ball jar and press down with a fist (you can use a cabbage leaf as a top and the press on that) until the veg is submerged in liquid- you can add the starter at this time. Cover and leave at room temp for about 3 days- you may like it stronger in which case you could let it go a few more days. When you are satisfied with the taste transfer to cold storage where it will last for up to 6 months.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: Esoteric Food Company

The post Foodie Underground: You Can Ferment That appeared first on EcoSalon.

I love that everyone I know is canning and pickling this summer. It’s such a great way to preserve the harvest for later and it’s so gratifying to put up your own food.

Pickles are great for beginners because they are high enough in acid that they don’t need to be pressure canned and may even be made in small batches and simply refrigerated.

Pickled vegetables are versatile as snacks, delicious on sandwiches and can be chopped up in summer salads. And if you have any left you can always put them out at Thanksgiving on a relish tray full of goodies you made yourself.

Here’s a sampling of tasty pickles from around the web.

A little sweet, a little tart, bread and butter pickles are great on sandwiches and served with creamy goat cheese. This version from Smitten Kitchen looks like a winner.

Pickled okra is a classic Southern table pickle. I turn to Martha for her version.

Dilly Beans are great for snacking and in Bloody Marys. Here’s a recipe from Food in Jars, which is, incidentally, one of my favorite canning resources on the web.

Image: The Bitten Word

The post In a Pickle: Cucumbers, Okra, and Green Beans appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you’ve been going to farmer’s markets or receive a CSA box, you may have encountered daikon and are wondering what you’re supposed to do with that weird, long, white radishy-looking thing, if you even knew what it was.

There’s no need to fear the daikon. This mildly flavored root vegetable is in fact a type of radish that is particularly popular in Japan. It’s known to be an excellent source of Vitamin C and can be served raw, cooked or pickled.

Pickling daikon is very common, particularly in Asia, and does seem like a good option. Recipes abound, but this one from the Food Network looks relatively straight-forward. Even better, try this recipe for Daikon Kimchi.

If you’re not up for the pickling route, daikon can be served raw, shredded or thinly sliced and combined with other vegetables in simple maki rolls. Here’s a recipe that gives a great explanation on making sushi rice and other ideas for fillings.

Daikon is also very good cooked in stir fries or soups. I highly recommend this Mark Bittman recipe from Food Matters for seafood with curry spices that includes grated daikon. This recipe is absolutely delicious and incredibly easy to make for dinner in literally 30 minutes.

Or, try it in soup. This NY Times recipe for Mushroom and Daikon soup looks amazing.

Images: Fido Cat, peskymac,  kamutflakegirl, calico0121

The post Don’t Fear the Daikon appeared first on EcoSalon.

As healthy food and eating locally have gained more traction, pickling is no longer an old-fashioned past-time of our grandmothers. Eco-friendly folks are aiming to re-gain control of the food supply, and many of us are looking at ways to preserve local, organic food while it’s in season. What better method than pickling?

Brooklyn is particularly known for embracing the locavore movement, which I read in a NY Times article over a year ago. Case in point, when I last visited, I checked out a flea market in Fort Greene, and was amazed at the number of people selling their home-pickled wares. I was notably impressed with the number of pickled beets on the scene. I’ve since learned that you can pickle just about anything!

Not surprising then, to discover a plethora of pickling activity in San Francisco. For example, I found the Happy Girl Kitchen Co. at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market a couple weekends ago. The Happy Girl Kitchen Co., based in Oakland and certified organic, is known for its highly refined preserving techniques and sells pickled beets, carrots and dill pickles, as well as sauerkraut and kombucha. (And fruit preserves. And canned tomatoes. And, and.)

I’ve been meaning to try pickling myself after tasting a friend’s pickled beans that were inspiring. But where to start? Happy Girl Kitchen Co. offers a variety of workshops. Classes are a bit pricey, but then again, you’re paying for a lifetime of knowledge. I also heard from a friend that the Joy of Cooking has a great recipe, and I noticed that Alice Waters included a recipe in her most recent book, In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn By Heart. With all the Persian pickles and tiny, fresh carrots at the farmers’ markets right now, I’d say it’s high time to start pickling!

Image: rachel is coconut lime

The post Preserving Local Flavors Through Pickling and the Happy Girl Kitchen Co. appeared first on EcoSalon.