pickled this and that

[Chuck52]

We had so many beans a couple of weeks back that we froze some, canned some, gave lots away, and still had excess. So, since I plan to pickle some okra for the first time, and have no experience pickling anything, I decided to experiment with some piclkled beans. Found a couple of recipes for dilled beans and pickled pole beans, also with dill, and kinda sorta combined them. We had these big Kentucky Wonder bush beans that get about 7-8 inches long and are still tender. I blanched the beans whole, and packed them into quart jars with a sliced clove of garlic and a jalapeno pepper sliced in half in each jar. I was surprised how much dill seed was called for in most dill pickle recipes. I ended up using a whole can of seed for just four quart jars. We craked open a quart yesterday and the kids, who are the ones insisting on the pickled okra, say I got it about right for that purpose, but need to add more pepper. The boys fished out the jalapeno and ate it. I may have to throw some cayenne in the okra, in addition to the jalapeno. The beans themselves also found favor, so I guess they'll be a standard way to do excess beans in the future.

Anyone pickle anything different? I never plant enough cucumbers to want to use them for pickles, though I may chop some up in some chow-chow to supplement the green tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, and whatever else I throw in.

Chuck

[Bird]

Chuck, the only thing we pickled was okra and cucumbers, but a neighbor pickled slices of yellow squash with onions. I don't have the recipe, but I sure enjoyed the ones they gave us. Can't recall ever seeing beans pickled, but as much as I like green beans, I'm sure I'd like it.

[Chuck52]

Bird,

Do you use dill in your pickled okra? I plan to because all that I've had used dill, but I was looking up recipes on the web and many of them don't use it.

The boys finished the first quart of pickled beans in about two days. I only made four quarts. My oldest boy was in the Navy and is just staying with us until the end of the month. Darn good thing he's moving out. It is amazing what he and his younger brother can do to a full refrigerator.

Chuck

[Bird]

Nope, Chuck, never added dill to the okra, though I would expect it to be pretty good that way, too. We actually used about 3 different recipes over the years and I never found one I didn't like (and my wife is just the opposite; she only wants okra fried).

[Pat]

I sure like pickled vegies and you guys made my mouth water. I read an unfortunate piece in either Consumers Reports or their health publication about the fairly high danger in pickled foods promoting cancer. I cut back but I won't quit.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
danger in pickled foods promoting cancer

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What is it in the pickled foods that's supposed to promote cancer; vinegar, spices, or what?

[egon]

From statistical evidence it has been noted that places like Japan and the baltic countries where picked fish is a diet staple seem to have more incidence of stomack cancer.

Conversly Japanese who move to the States and change their diet to north american standards have a greater risk of heart attack.

Still haven't found any pickled Okra and dill pickles; well we'll just take our chances.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Chuck52]

On to other pickled stuff: Hillbilly salsa, also known as chow-chow!

There are two major kinds of chow-chow relish....the Pennsylvania Dutch variety, which looks kinda like a vegetable salad in a jar with chunks of cauliflower, carrots, beans and such, and the Southern variety, which is more finely divided and usually is based on green tomatoes, cabbage, onions and peppers. Before I learned about salsa, I ate my eggs, biscuits and sausage with Southern style chow-chow, when I could get it. Here in the middle of Missouri, you get funny looks if you talk about eating chow-chow...I think they think you mean the dog. Good chow-chow is a sweet/sour relish, usually with tumeric, mustard seed and celery seed. Last month, my son and I decided to make some, since we had the cabbage, onions, and both bell and hot peppers. However, I wanted to keep all my tomatoes in the hope they would get ripe, so we didn't have green tomatoes to spare. We did, however, have tons of green beans, so we used those in our relish. The general idea is to chop up whatever veggies you have, but certainly cabbage, bell peppers and onions, and for us, hot peppers, salt it fairly well, and let it sweat. Then drain off all the liquid and rinse as much of the salt out as you like, checking the taste. To our mix, we added lots of chopped up green beans, because, as I said, that's what we had. You then prepare a pickle juice of sugar, vinegar and the spices which you simmer. Then the veggies are added and the whole mess is brought to a boil and then put in the jars and processed in a water bath. Note that I give no measures. We had about 5 quarts of veggies and used a half cup of salt. We rinsed a lot of the salt off when we drained the veggies, but my son says we should have rinsed more out. Our pickle used a sugar:vinegar ratio of 1:3, and I think that was a bit tart. This was a learning run, and it came out pretty good, but we're going to adjust things for the next batch. This time, in addition to the cabbage, peppers, and onions, we have a few green tomatoes and lots of cucumbers. We don't want a cucumber relish, so we will be careful about how much cucumber we use. For the 10 pints we made before, we used only about three jalapenos and five or six dried cayanne (from last years garden). This time, we will use at least one jalapeno per pint, and also some nice fresh cayannes. Should be interesting. I think we'll go to a 1:2 sugar:vinegar ratio.

Chuck

[egon]

A cook of my type. No recipe. Every time just a little different to make allowances for changes in the vegetables and herbs.

Actually mine is the lack of ability to follow a recipe or rember one.

Egon