I have been experimenting with recipes for pickling. Something that I tried that I now really love is this...





Pickled cucumber, carrot and red capsicum/bell pepper! I mostly love the cucumber, but I like the slight flavour imparted by the red pepper. I even woke at 5:00 am the other morning with a craving to eat some of these cucumbers and so I did.

How to make them...

I used some extra whey I had left from my sauerkraut for the juice and I added about 1/3 dill pickle brine (commercial). I skinned and sliced my vegetables, put them in the bottle, then filled up with the brine mix, and added a few large grains of sea salt.

I left this sitting out on the countertop for 2 days then put it in the fridge. The advantages of putting it in the fridge is to slow fermentation which I feel keeps the cucumbers crisper. Meanwhile, they soak up quite a bit of brine so they taste salty and a bit sour/tangy. But not as strong as store-bought pickles or heavily fermented foods, hence they are very refreshing and don't make your mouth pucker. And with this brine mix full of living bacteria, you are of course getting those benefits as well.

I really love these pickles. And you can reuse the brine over and over (that is my intention). You may need to add salt from time to time, but I can only imagine the wondrous, varied culture compositions being created.

Edit: I did a large batch of just cucumbers this way and have found that it is probably best to use raw apple cider vinegar and water 50/50 rather than whey. The sauerkraut whey started everything fermenting aggressively and the cukes became fizzy and bitter.