Sweet Pickle Relish
Every year I plant my garden anxious for my fruits and veggies. But each year I don’t plant cucumbers because each year they come back anyway. In different places in my garden they will sprout. Always in a place where they can have lots of room. It just makes me laugh and delights me. It is what I call summer magic. This year I thought they wouldn’t come. We had an exceptionally hard winter and I started to believe they weren’t coming and I started to panic. No pickles, what is a fermenter fanatic to do. But come they did, in a spot they had never sprouted from before. Now in my own reality I like to believe that as I sleep, angels come at night and plant seeds,so they will grow and become cucumbers. Then I will ferment them and tell the world how to make these life-giving pickles. That this it is my destiny and higher calling. So if I find out that every-bodies cucumbers come back every year. I will be slightly disappointed maybe even crushed. So if you don’t mind I prefer to stay in my own crazy reality watching with joy as my cucumbers come to me year after year, and coming up with new recipes to fulfill my greater destiny.
I think everyone should ferment and not can their vegetables. No big boiling pots of water heating up the kitchen. Just a little chopping and patience and you have one of my favorite foods fermented pickles!! Pickles that are loaded with vitamin c and good bacterias that can change the world that lives inside of you. So my first recipe this year with my cucumbers is: Sweet fermented relish. Man I just love pickles…
- 3 cups chopped and diced cucumbers
- ½ cup chopped and diced sliced onions
- ½ teaspoon from Caldwell’s Veggie starter pck
- ¼ cup kefir whey or
- ½ cup honey or maple syrup
- ½ red pepper chopped and diced
- 1½ teaspoon Celtic sea salt
- 1 tablespoon whole celery seeds
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- ½ tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
- In large bowl, mix cucumbers with onion and place in 1 quart-sized, wide-mouthed mason jars, pressing down lightly with a pounder or meat hammer.
- Combine remaining ingredients and pour the liquid over cucumbers, adding more water if necessary to cover.
- Keep the top of the liquid 1 inch below the top of the jar.
- Cover tightly and keep at room temperature for about 3 days before transferring to the refrigerator.
- These will last at least a year in your fridge.
very happy to have found your web site. i make feta from my cows milk, the whey i was using to make bread and feed to the chickens and cat can i use this whey for my cultuered veggs? i have only been using sea salt? i am just starting some kefir grains, i didn’t like it a couple of years ago when i first tryed it , i will do the second ferment this time. thanks
You need to use whey from kefir to culture veggies. It isn’t strong enough from the feta to do the job.
can you leave the whey out if you dont have any on hand? is it just added to preserve it? can i add it later, when i have some? thanks!
You can but it is best to add it because it cultures much more effective with it, and the good bacteria levels stay at a higher level longer.
By ‘red pepper’ do you mean a chilli or a capsicum? (i’m from australia) Thanks!
It is Chili. Love this question!
I’m new to cultured foods. Can you give more information on the whey? Is it powdered? I’m having trouble finding kefir grains and I’ve not seen a cultured veggie pack anywhere. What do I ask for at the store? Can whey be used in other cultured veggie recipies? We’ve several great small grocers that are Committed to organics and ‘clean’ food products so should be able to purchase something to use – only product on the shelf in something to make yogurt…. Thanks for your great info.
The whey is kefir whey which you get when you make kefir. the powder packages are culture packages which you can buy when you click on the words culture packages. You most likely will not be able to buy them locally except if you live in Kansas city because many stores carry them. Kefir Whey can be used to culture all kinds of cultured veggies. You can get all these cultures on my site under store.
how long does this keep? I think there is another typo.
It keeps at least a year. I have had it be fine at 1 1/2. Really tasty.
Thanks, I’m making them again today and will let you know how they turn out.
Debbie
Is the amount for the celtic Sea Salt a typo? Should it be tablespoons or teaspoons? Mine turned out really salty. I could have measured wrong but want to check before I make them again.
Thanks,
Debbie
It must be, thanks for letting me know. This would make it too salty