Due to my very prolific cucumber plants, I have been putting up pints and pints of dill pickles. Canning pickles is a great way to preserve cucumbers for the winter. But there was a couple of instances when I had too many pickles to eat but not enough to warrant filling up the canning pot and standing over the hot stove. There was also a time when I was going out of town for the weekend and needed to do something with the cucumbers I just picked, but I didn’t have time to undertake canning. Enter the dill refrigerator pickle. This recipe can make as many or as few pickles as you want and is quick and easy. These don’t keep as long as a canned pickle but are perfect right now when you need a pickle fix or have a burger to eat in these last few days of summer.
The liquid part of this recipe will cover about 2 quarts of pickles. Simply half the recipe if you have less cucumbers.
Ingredients:
Fresh pickling cucumbers (enough to fill 2 quart jars), blossom ends removed
*Note about my cucumbers: I used Fine De Meaux (a green cucumber) and Poona Kheera (a yellow cucumber) and pickled them whole. You can also make dill pickle slices if you have larger cucumbers.
4 heads of fresh dill (flowering)
2 grape leaves
4-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced in half
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups filtered water
2 tablespoons sea salt or pickling salt
Step One:
Bring vinegar, water, and salt to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Boil 2 minutes and keep hot until you are ready to use it.
Step Two:
In each quart jar place 1 grape leaf, 2 dill heads, 2-3 cloves of garlic (depending on how large your cloves are).
Pack cucumbers in on top of all of that.
Step Three:
Pour hot vinegar mixture over cucumbers, leaving about 1 inch of headroom. Put a lid and band on and let pickles sit at room temperature until cooled. Place in refrigerator and wait at least a day or two before eating. Pickles will keep for about 2 months in the fridge.
This post is linked to Healthy 2day Wednesday, Eat Make Grow, Your Green Resource, Little House in the Suburbs, and Carnival of Home Preserving, Homestead Barn Hop, The Morris Tribe.
8:09 am on September 21st, 2012
These look delicious!
Thank you for linking this up at the Carnival of Home Preserving!
10:55 pm on September 21st, 2012
[...] Refrigerator Dill Pickles: Green Bean Gardens. All the fridge pickles I see have SUGAR, which I can’t have. Finally a DILL recipe. [...]
11:25 am on September 22nd, 2012
I’m trying these!! Look absolutely delish!!
2:49 pm on September 23rd, 2012
Great post! I have just started canning this year. I hope you will come link up to my Blog Fest:http://fresh-eggs-daily.blogspot.com/2012/09/farm-girl-friday-blog-fest-1.html