We can pickle that

After watching Portlandia's skit for "We can pickle that" I have had a urge to pickle something, anything. Pickled cats? Maybe. I love pickled foods, they are so great especially the hot/spicy versions. As I had mentioned in my last post I had picked up some goodies at Green City last week in hopes of pickling them. Today was the day and I happened to get one recipe done.


I decided to try out a recipe for pickling Kohlrabi and Radishes from Liana Krissoff's book "Canning for the New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry". I highly recommend this book for a variety of reasons, I've done several recipes, even modified a few, all of them are really solid that make me really excited when I taste them.

The recipe calls for:
 1 Medium Kohlrabi
6 Radishes
1 1/2 cups Rice Vinegar (4% Acidity)
1/2 cup Mirin (a rice wine, consisting of 40%–50% sugar)
3/4 tsp. Kosher Salt
2 large pinches of red pepper flakes

After chopping the veggies, I noticed the ingredient portions didn't quite match the liquids. I assume this is because the size of the items I had picked up at the farmers market. So I doubled the liquids after noticing this so the liquids would cover in the jars.

Boil, mix, cool, transfer to jar and blam-o. This recipe is super simple and has a wonderful flavor. It's a refrigerator pickle, so I didn't need to dig the canning pot out to seal them up all tight. The longer the extras sat in the pickling juice, the better they got. The recipe says it's good for 3 weeks, I'm looking forward to snacking on this throughout the week as they get better and better. All and all and super simple successful pickle.

It's insane how much cooking I've done in the last three days with my cooking partner in crime Kelly Baas who is becoming a blog celebrity amongst her friends who blog about food. After a very long night (4am) with our dear amazing friends Mike and Amy in the loop (sorry about that tab, I will make it up to you!), she popped over and we made a amazing brunch this morning afternoon. Amazing what meals just happen, our new rule when cooking with each other is we have to stick to what is in our kitchens. Today that consisted of: Eggs w/garlic & butter, a green salad with a vinaigrette dressing (roasted shallots, little Dijon mustard, honey, red wine vinegar, canola oil) topped with sauteed mushrooms and sweet (yellow beets), hand made pretzels salty and sweet versions, coffee and German grits!

I'm absolutely loving my food loving friends in my new neighborhood who are rallying behind this food movement happening this year in my house. I'm so happy to be settled in my kitchen and to start having people over for cook offs. It's about time to fire up the monthly dinner club again, but I may turn it into a biweekly meal for anyone who is available and nearby. Building community amongst our local friends is so much healthier on our hearts and soul.

 Here's to my 2012 motto, "Quality Over Quantity" although today, you could say I had both Quality and Quantity. Once I get a few more things canned and I get a little more settled it will be time for the first dinner party and then my CSA box from Tomato Mountain will be here in no time.

This is going to be a really great year, I'm so thankful for everything and everyone.

Kelly Baas hard at work rolling out some Sweet Dough Pretzels