No Cook Refrigerator Pickles...

Here is how you can make your own pickles just in time for summer picnics or anytime snacks.  Making them is really easy and requires no cooking!  You can get cucumbers for making these pickles at the grocery store or make the pickles with your own home grown cucumbers. 

Ingredients:

• 1 - 1 1/2 lbs. pickling cucumbers
• 2 cups water
• 1 cups vinegar
• 1 Tbsp sea salt 
• Fresh dill
• Optional seasonings (mustard seeds, celery seeds, garlic, sugar, onion, etc.)

Directions:

1. Wash and cut the cucumbers.  You can cut them in 'chips' by cutting across the cucumbers about every 1/4 inch or in 'spears' by cutting them from end to end.  Also, cut off each end of the cucumbers.  That helps them to stay crisper.
2. Put the cut cucumbers, fresh dill, and any seasonings in wide mouth pint jars.
3. Make your brine by mixing the water, vinegar, and sea salt in a pitcher until the salt is dissolved.
4. Pour the brine mixture in the jars until the cucumbers are completely covered.
5. Screw the lids on the jars and put the jars in the refrigerator for four days.

Since these are refrigerator pickles they are not pickles you can leave out.  Always keep the pickles in the refrigerator.  They will be good for a couple of months and they get better as each day goes by.

When picking cucumbers, I use 'pickling cucumbers.'  They are much more crisp than salad cucumbers.  Good pickling cucumbers are dark green, firm, and have lots of bumps.

To make the pickles, the first thing I do is wash off all of the cucumbers.

Have a grown-up cut off the ends of the cucumbers so they are just a little smaller than your jar and then cut them into long spears.  They will fit perfectly in pint size jars.  Put as many cucumber spears in each jar as you can.  A pound of cucumbers fills about two jars.

Add 5 or 6 sprigs of fresh dill to the jars.  You can also add optional seasonings for different tasting pickles.

Next is making the brine.  Measure 2 cups of water and pour it in a bigger pitcher.

Pour 1 cup of vinegar and add that to the bigger pitcher.

Measure 1 tablespoon of sea salt and add that to the water and vinegar mixture.

Stir the water, vinegar, and salt until the salt is completely mixed.

Pour the water, vinegar, and salt mixture into the jars until it covers all of the pickles.

Screw the tops to the jars on tight and then put the jars in the refrigerator.  Here is the hard part - you now have to wait four days for the cucumbers to become pickles (although I usually eat some before the four days).  Don't forget, these are refrigerator pickles and need to stay in the refrigerator.