Making pickles

We have lots of fresh cucumbers coming in right now.  We have two varieties planted - an organic pickling cucumber and a Japanese Long cucumber.  A cool, crisp cucumber is refreshing in this summer heat.  To preserve the harvest, those that we can't eat fresh out of the garden - we pickle using lacto-fermentation to preserve them.  The recipe comes from Nourishing Traditions, a publication put out by the Weston A. Price Foundation.

All you need are some cucumbers, some mustard seeds, some dill, 1 Tablespoon salt, 4 Tablespoons whey and some filtered water.  It is a very simple process. 


Ingredients

We've mixed the sea salt and whey in the wide mouth quart jar.  We would have added the mustard seeds and dill at this stage, but we were out and went ahead with the recipe.  Not to worry, they'll be eaten anyway!  Strangely enough, Tricia does not like cucumbers, but she likes them prepared like this.  The whey that we're using here is a by-product of making Kefir with our cows' milk.


Salt, whey and stir

Now we slice up all the cucumbers.


Slice up the cukes

Once they are sliced, simply put them in your jar with whey and salt until they fill the jar.


Fill the jar with sliced cucumbers

Add filtered water to top off the jar, leaving one inch of headroom at the top of the jar. 

Top off with filtered water

Cover the jar tightly and leave at room temperature for a couple of days before moving to your refrigerator.


Set on the counter at room temperature for a couple of days.

I told you that was easy!  Now all you gotta do is reach in the jar with a fork and eat one or two.