Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Kerosene Cucumbers!

I am exhausted. Thoroughly tired. So pooped I pondered plopping in bed when L. did at eight this evening. Instead, I am up at 10:42 in the pm waiting for a couple of jars to cool enough that I can dump them in the fridge. Inspired by Gretchen's latest escapades in freezing and canning and otherwise being very Martha-ish, I sallied forth on my own very first attempt to make refrigerator pickles. We'll see how it goes. I am much more Macgyver than Martha (I can solder a circuit board and read some electrical schematics, but I have yet to successfully cook an entire meal from scratch).

I've already caught one glaring boo-boo floating down at the bottom of the jars. I intended to put in garlic cloves that had been cut in half in my dill concoction. Floating merrily away are whole cloves. Oh well, maybe it will make up for the entirely too much onion I added? I don't know since I've never made pickles before. I almost hope these don't turn out well since I sort of forgot to follow the recipe I had and have no idea if I can ever reproduce these exact pickles. On the bright side, though, Mr. W. and S. would have absolutely no problem telling me if the taste of these pickles reminds them of kerosene (like Aunt Bea's in one especially hysterical Andy Griffith episode).

S. and I went to the farmer's market (or, the outside grocery store, as S. calls it) on Saturday to pick out these cukes. Mostly, she enjoyed eating the peach samples she was offered. We didn't buy any peaches since I am a peach snob, and these peaches were on the dry side. There should be a law against fresh peaches that don't dribble down your chin, you know. We came home with a bunch of little cucumbers, some zucchini and green beans.

I had fun with my big girl, and I think we're going to do it again this weekend... Let's hope I don't wind up poisoning my family.

M.W.

Andy: It's time to do what we should have done to start with.
Barney: What's that, Andy?
Andy: Learn to love 'em.

1 comment:

Gretchen said...

The important thing - You tried!