Recipe: Finny-Fridge-Pickles!

Requisite Disclaimer:  I am *not* a pickle-person - never have been! But I thought it might be fun to "break the rules" and see if, maybe, I prefer HOME-MADE pickles instead.

Trouble is:  I didn't plant pickle-able cucumbers this year (or, if I did, they were decimated by bugs or some-such nonsense!).

So last week, my local Blogger-Buddy, Finnyknits, came by to steal some of my over-abundance of peaches.  I knew that she had planted cukes, and that hers were producing MADLY, so I asked her to bring some ("only if you've got more than you can handle!!!").  She actually offered to bring some bona-fide pickles, but I declined.  I actually wanted to try pickling myself!

She did end-up bringing me a good-sized bag of fresh-picked cukes which I (thankfully!) tossed into the fridge because it was a full-week before I could actually DO anything with them! (Thanks, Finny! ;-)

If you're a regular reader of this blog (First-off, I LOVE you! Thanks!!!!), you have no-doubt heard me RAVE about my Sweet Corn Apple Relish (many, many, many times!).  I srsly LOVE this sh*t!!!

Well, in the course of my web-surfing, I stumbled onto this (which I immediately pinned!).  The ingredients seem strikingly similar to my corn-relish recipe so - "What the hey," right?!! - let's try to "modify" the recipe and apply it to pickles instead!

I figured I'd stick to the refrigerator version b/c I didn't wanna do a lot of waiting/brining/work/yada-yada.  So this is what I came up with!  No clue if it's gonna be any good or not (I'll sample it tomorrow - or maybe this weekend - and report back!).

Since these were Finny's Cukes, I felt it was only fitting to name them after her (Gawd, I hope they're tasty - otherwise, she might hate me for-EVAR!!!)

Finny Fridge Pickles
Yield: 3 one-pint jars

Ingredients

• 2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 4 oz. unsweetened "natural" applesauce
• 1-1/2 TBS fine sea salt (adjust to your liking - this is what *I* ended up with!)
• 1 cup granulated Splenda
• 1/2 cup white sugar (again, adjust sweetness to your liking)
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 1 tsp celery seed
• Optional: crushed red pepper (if you want more spice).  Or ground cumin (if you like a more 'mexican-y flavor') (I didn't add either of these)
• 1-1/2 lbs pickle-sized cucumbers, sliced (I did mine as spears)
• 1/2 of a large-ish sweet (or red) onion, finely minced
• 2 celery stalks, finely minced
• 3 diced red and/or yellow sweet peppers (the little kind) (I used leftovers from last weekend's veggie-dip tray!!!)

Instructions:

1. In a small saucepan at medium-high heat, combine cider vinegar, water, applesauce, salt, sugar, turmeric, celery seed and grd mustard. Bring to a boil and let it boil hard for one minute.
2. Meanwhile, slice cucumbers and onion. Dice the peppers (remove the seeds unless you want LOTS of spice!), chop the celery.  Loosely pack the vegetables in 1-pint canning jars or other similarly sized containers. Pour hot liquid over the vegetables in the container. Refrigerate for 24 hours and enjoy! Keep refrigerated.

Now, I don't know if it's fair to call these "pickles" - or maybe they're just "marinated cucumbers!"  I also have no clue how they're ultimately gonna taste, but I will *definitely* report-back, after sampling!

I will say I was pleasantly-surprised to discover that the quantity of liquid/heated stuff was absolutely PERFECT for the quantity of veggies I'd sliced and tossed into my pint-jars! (Talk about Pure F**king Luck!!!).

But, OTOH, I have no clue how I will "serve" the resulting pickles since there's so much tiny-loose stuff in the brine.

I guess we'll just have to see how everything plays out, right?!

This is one of those "I have NO clue what the hell I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway" kinda situations! ("Yay Me!" - for Being Brave, right?!! lol)

I'll definitely report back in, later! ;-)