Super Easy Microwave Sweet Pickles
So, I do NOT have cucumbers coming out my ears this year. Last year and the year before, we picked and gave away literally thousands, that’s THOUSANDS of the sometimes prolific vegetable that is every dieter’s friend in its raw state. Hundreds of web searchers found my recipe for Midget Sweet Pickles. (Which are NOT a dieter’s friend in their super sweet state.) The recipe ranks 7th in popularity posts from this past year! Who would have guessed? Midget sweet pickle are also known as sweet gherkins especially in the U.K. and Australia.
But this recipe is one hundred times easier and also great! I was delighted to find that Lois Priest’s recipe below, which she submitted for the Whatever Happened to Dinner recipe collection a couple years ago, is truly as fast (at least when it comes to pickles) as Lois always told me. (Lois is the shipping supervisor for all those books and Sunday school materials going out from MennoMedia and Herald Press.)
So, if you have cukes, green peppers, onions and a few pickling spices, you’re in business. I whipped these out in about one hour, two small batches (taking about one half hour each), 4 pints altogether. If you have hundreds to can like I did last year, you’d be better off looking for a recipe that process gallons at a time, not cups. But if you have small dribbles of cucumbers and wish to do something with them so they don’t go to waste, Lois says she often does just a batch after work in the evening. This recipe is perfect for that.
(Note to self: do not plant the super long variety of cucumbers again. I don’t much like them. The vines seem to have been susceptible to a blight or something that killed vines off very early (see issues here) and the cucumbers themselves soon shrivel up after they’ve been picked. Other cucumbers I’ve raised other years kept beautifully in the fridge for at least a week, sometimes two.)
Microwave Pickle
From Lois Priest, with her note included in Whatever Happened to Dinner.
This was given to me by a friend several years ago. It is the only pickle I make, because it is so easy and quick—and good too. I even chop some to put in salads. I make many batches each year, usually 30–40 pints.
3–4 cups / 750–1 L sliced cucumbers
½ cup / 125 ml green peppers, cut in strips
½ cup / 125 ml onion, cut in strips
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon mustard seed
4 teaspoons celery seed
½ cup / 125 ml vinegar
1 cup / 250 ml sugar
Photos and instructions below:
Put sliced ingredients in large bowl.
Combine spices, sugar, and vinegar, and pour over the vegetables.
Stir to coat well. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave for 7 minutes.
This is what they looked like when they came out of the microwave, all air sucked out and plastic down tight on the contents, but no plastic melted.
Remove and place into pint jars. Put on canning jar type lids and rings to seal.
[My note: these do not need to be placed in a boiling water bath. They will seal themselves as they cool off.]
Makes 2 pints. (I made two batches with 2 pints each.)
Cleaning up the dishes and utensils after took about as long as making the pickle!
There are two pickle recipes in my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner, one for cucumber relish, and one for these microwave pickles.
And if you haven’t heard, there’s a giveaway for this book going on over at Amish Wisdom, until August 7, 2015.
Three copies are offered. Check it out!
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