Now that I’m back from my travels, I’m going back to the farmers market for inspiration, both for personal use, and for Freakin’ Flamingo.

I love pickles. I can’t think of any meal that a pickle can’t perk up. You know that I’ve made pickles before – pickled asparagus, pickled carrots, pickled spring onions & green garlic, even pickled cantaloupe. What I haven’t pickled yet, are cucumbers. Mostly because I hadn’t seen pickling cucumbers around here that are local and worth the effort.

That’s changed. I recently found a vendor at the South Miami Farmers Market with some of the prettiest – and tastiest – local produce I’ve ever had. Seems I can now get limes and key limes grown locally, not from Mexico or Guatemala. And I can now get pickling cucumbers! In my latest outing this weekend, Laura tossed a few cukes into my box so I could try them out before buying a boatload next weekend.

So, I canned up a quick quart and this is what I came up with:

Spicy Garlic Pickles
(makes 1 quart)

Ingredients:

2 cups white vingegar
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tbs. pickling/canning salt

4 pickling cucumbers
1 serrano chili pepper
1 tsp. whole black peppercorns
1 tsp. whole coriander seeds
1 tsp. whole dill seed
1 large clove garlic

Preparation:

Bring the vinegars, water, and salt to a boil in a 2-quart pot.

Slice the cukes in half, lengthwise, or leave whole if you prefer. Heat (or sterilize) a one-quart canning jar and fill the hot jar with the cucumbers (stuff ‘em in there!). Make a long slit in the serrano pepper, give the peeled garlic clove a good whack with the flat of your knife blade, and insert those into the jar, followed by the whole spices.

Fill the jar with the boiling brine, leaving 1/2″ of head space, wipe the mouth of the jar with a clean, very damp paper towel, top with a new, heated lid, and add the screw-on band, tightening finger-tight.

Place the filled jar in a boiling water canner, or even a tall stock pot with a rack in the bottom (make sure you have at least 1″ of water over the top), and boiled, covered, for 15 minutes.

Allow to meld for a minimum of one or two weeks before eating.

Notes:

If you don’t want to boiling water process these, you can put the jar in the fridge after it’s cooled, but it may take a bit longer for the flavors to develop. Also, they have to live in your fridge. One of the benefits of water canning process is that you can leave them in your pantry for months.

I’m going to pop these babies open next weekend, and I can’t wait!

Hey – stay tuned for some special announcements, including some promotions for Freakin’ Flamingo!