Pickling Day

This past Sunday was a day off for us. Our first day off, no work or other obligations, in several weeks. I'd really been looking forward to it, and had been planning to hit the beach with my family for some much-needed downtime.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for us! Instead of a nice beach day, we had torrential downpours and thunderstorms. Not exactly beach weather.

Since I couldn't go to the beach, I decided to tackle some projects around the house, including working my way through some of the produce we picked up from the farm share on Friday. Since we got EIGHT cucumbers in our share, (and I had a few from the garden!) I decided it was time to make pickles!

Pickles are one of the absolute easiest things to can, ever. You can whip up a big batch in less than an hour. This time I made our favorite dill pickles, in both slices and spears. I also tried a new recipe: Pickled onions! (I also got a ton of onions from the farm) Those were pretty good, but at first taste just a little ~too~ tart for my liking, so I might have to work on that recipe a bit. I'll see how they are after they sit for a couple of weeks.

Although it was not the beach day I had planned, it turned out to be kind of nice to have time to catch up on those little tasks I haven't had time to get to lately. Though I WILL say that on our next day off, 15 days from now, I REALLY hope I get to the beach! I might even bring a jar of pickles for our picnic.

Homemade Pickles! Balsamic pickled onions, dill spears and dill slices