Pickles Pickles Pickles, and Not Cucumbers

Deciding to do a CSA this year was one of the biggest decisions I've made regarding food since I went organic/local/homemade/whatevertheheckitscalledmovement.  You get a surprise basket of joy from a local farm, only you really don't have a say in what you get.  Some farms will let you pick and choose for a premium, while others (like mine) will try to accomodate requests if possible.  I kind of like the surprise basket.  Its like a Food Network show each Wednesday when I go to pick up my crate.  What crazy things will I find that I have to make edible, if not absolutely delicious?  Will I be able to eat 5 pounds of lettuce and greens without getting sick of them?  What the heck is this strange looking thing?  Holy cow I have a bag of spinach and a head of lettuce left and my new crate will be here in two days!

Its a huge commitment, because if you are like me, beyond the challenge of figuring out how to use everything, there is also guilt in wasting anything.  Oh no, what do I do with a bunch of mint and crap, I got more mint!  Doh!  There is also the guilt at the Farmer's Market if I buy anything that I could very well get in my CSA (I am not allowed to buy greens, I am not allowed to buy greens, ooooh, look, pretty frisee and garlic chives!).

So far, I have received 2 crates and so far, there is little to no waste.  Mostly because I have a boy to feed and can send stuff home with him where in my mind, it is not wasted because it was a gift!  My saviour is pickling.  I love pickles.  Who doesn't love pickles?  Boy popped open a jar of spicy garlic asparagus pickles because I had traded it to him for a small jar of pickled garlic and dill pickled carrots.  I was nervous, the idea of asparagus pickles had sounded good to me, but would it actually taste any good?  It had been the requisite two weeks and I watched his face expectantly as he munched through his first spear.  I heard crunching.  That was good.  I had a lot of fear that cooking the aspargus first would be a mistake.  He declared them to be good with the right balance of sweet and pungent and bullied me for the recipe.  Okay, that's a lie, he just asked me for the recipe and I told him to come to this blog. 

And so I nabbed one, too.  The verdict.  Extremely addictive, although next time I would use a little more garlic, a little more hot pepper, and only pour the hot pickling liquid over the raw asparagus spears.  We ate the entire jar in about 10 minutes.  But not to fear, CSA to the rescue with another bunch of asparagus!  And so, I have a quart jar of asparagus pickles getting all ready for me to eat.   I also have a lil jar o' Asian Inspired Radish Pickles in the fridge.  You can only eat raw veggies and salads so many times, but pickles, you can all the time!  At least I can.  And pickles can be super easy and don't require you to jar the pickles for storage on the shelf if you have a relatively small amount like I received in my CSA.... cuz then you can just throw them in the fridge and they stay good for a couple weeks (if they last that long). 

Radishes have a naturally crunchy and amazing texture with a nice peppery finish, and so they need very little to help them along on their way to pickle-dom.  I packed about 8 small radishes sliced thin and a thinly sliced bulb of a CSA green onion into a small canning jar, and poured in the pickling brine.  The pickling brine was nothing but 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes heated together.  I popped on a lid but kept the ring a little loose and then let it cool before I transferred to the fridge.  It should be ready to eat the next day, but they stay good and get better with age for the next couple of weeks.  I am seriously considering finding me a farm stand and buying 20 pounds of asparagus so I can have asparagus pickles until next year. 

Eating Seasonally... Asparagus Invades the Eastern Shore

Sometimes I think I was meant to live in West Virginia, Kentucky, wherever there are major farming communities... I have a major weakness for farm stands whenever I am on a road trip. Thank goodness most of my friends are, too, and humor the fact that I have to stop at almost every single one I see from April to November. The sight of asparagus at farm stands means I am about to embark on a whirlwind 8 months of amazing seasonal eating. I also love pickles. You can pickle almost everything. Its really easy. It stops you from getting bored of eating the same thing every day for the 3 weeks it is in season.

And so, in an effort to rid myself of 2 pounds of asparagus I nabbed on the Eastern Shore without having to smell my pee for the next week, I decided to make Spicy Garlic Asparagus Pickles, inspired by the King o' the Canning Mountain... the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I have no idea how these taste yet, but really, I have never met a pickle I didn't like.

Cut about 2 pounds of asparagus into 4" pieces, making sure to discard any of the really fat fibrous icky bottom part. Yes, very scientific-foodie description, but don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I also cut about 1/3 of a red onion into very thin slivers. Mostly, because I love onion, and who wouldn't want to pickle onion. They also happen to match the slightly purple tips of my asparagus. Cuz pickles should also be pretty (Disclaimer: see discussion of canning salt... this obviously is secondary to taste). Soak these in water with about 1/3 cup of canning salt for two hours.

Now, stores in downtown DC where I live do not seem to carry canning salt. At least, not in the Logan Circle/Dupont area. I figured out after searching online this basically means you can't use iodized table salt and probably not sea salt or it will make your pickles turn a funny color possibly or make your pickling liquid cloudy. Well, I accidentally bought sea salt, of which I already have a ton, instead of kosher salt, which is considered an acceptable alternative for discoloration purposes. But, at the end of the day, really, its the taste that matters so if my asparagus pickles turn a funny color, I don't really care. They are still going to be delicious.

I used 3 pint mason jars and simmered them with water in my all purpose lobster/canning/beerbrewing pot atop a small cookie rack. I simmered in a small separate pot the lids (not the rings). While those were keeping warm, I brought 1 cup of water, 4 cups of white vinegar, 3/4 cups of sugar, and 2 heaping TBSP of mustard seeds to simmer for about 5 minutes in a large pot. Make sure this pot is big enough to hold all of your asparagus.

Rinse the asparagus and onions with cool water and add to the pickling liquid. Bring it back to a boil and then remove from heat. Using a handy dandy jar picker upper thingy (yes, these exist, check out a hardware store or kitchen store for one), take one jar and dump the water back into the pot. Put 1 TBSP minced garlic and your choice of dried hot chili pepper (I used 2 dried chile de arboles per jar, whole, but cracked the top off and dumped the seeds into the bottom of the jar, too) along with a couple white and black whole peppercorns in the bottom of the jar. Then pack as tightly as possible the asaparagus into the jar leaving 1/2 inch of head space. Ladle in the pickling liquid to 1/2 inch of head space. Make sure there are no air bubbles, wipe the rim, and then pop a lid (which has been keeping warm... I used plastic tongs) and a ring on each. Make sure not to tighten the ring too much. Then put back into the big ass pot.

Once you have finished all of them, make sure at least 1" of water covers the jars, and bring the pot to a roaring boil and let it go for 10 minutes starting from when the rolling boil starts with the lid on. Turn off the heat after 10 minutes, remove the lid, and let everything sit for 5 minutes. Take the jars out and put on a towel and let cool for 24 hours. Well, that means tomorrow I need to check to make sure the lids sealed properly.

So maybe only 3 pints of these pickles seems paltry, but my CSA starts next week and well, yea, I plan to pickle what I can't eat, freeze, dehydrate, or otherwise enjoy without getting completely sick of it...