Friday, November 16, 2007

Lost and Found

Sometime ago, maybe about 1983, I started making up pickled carrots and cauliflower around Thanksgiving time and including them on the relish tray for snacking before Thanksgiving Dinner. The recipe was from Gourmet Magazine. I tossed out the hardcopy of the recipe because I had it on my computer but somewhere along the way that recipe didn't make it from the transfer of data from one computer to another. This week I went looking for another recipe for pickled carrot sticks and I think I found the exact recipe that I had used.

During the search I came across several other recipes for refrigerator pickles that looked good. This one in Fine Cooking can be a refrigerator or canned pickles. I hope that you can open the recipe without being a subscriber to the magazine. It looks colorful since it includes carrots, cauliflower and red pepper. It will make up about 3 pints of pickles. I've been thinking that it would make a great hostess gift during the holiday season.....IF I could find containers. In Houston, no problem....I'd pop over to The Container Store or Bed Bath and Beyond. Here in San Miguel, I'm not sure where to even go look for some cute glass containers with tight fitting lids.

Here is the recipe for my lost and now found recipe for Pickled Carrot Sticks........

PICKLED CARROT STICKS (or green beans or cauliflower)

1 lb carrots, cut into 3 1/2- by 1/3-inch sticks
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup sugar (next time I'm going to increase the sugar)
2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed
1 1/2 tablespoons dill seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons salt

Blanch carrots in a 4-quart nonreactive saucepan of boiling salted water 1 minute, then drain in a colander and rinse under cold water to stop cooking.

Transfer carrots to a heatproof bowl.

Bring remaining ingredients to a boil in saucepan, then reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes. Pour pickling liquid over carrots and cool, uncovered.

Chill carrots, covered, at least 1 day for flavors to develop.

Cooks' note: Carrots keep, chilled in an airtight container, 1 month.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

who needs a cookbook when they read your blog? those look so good-i will try to make them tomorrow.

i wrote a while back commenting on your tart and salad, which looked so delicious, but evidently it didn't go through. it seems that sometimes i have to submit a comment twice or it disappears.

do you have any good vegetarian recipes? we'll be living in chacala for 3 1/2 months this winter and our son is a vegetarian so i am looking for recipes that will be easy to make using ingredients that are easily found in mexico.

have a nice weekend.

teresa

Billie Mercer said...

Teresa,
Since I do most of my recipe cooking from Fine Cooking Magazine because I've never had one that I didn't like, I'd suggest that you buy their special issue on cooking vegetables.
http://store.taunton.com/onlinestore/item/052010.html
It is only $8.
But I'll keep posting my veggie recipes when I can. I'm never sure about copyright issues with posting recipes that I didn't make up or substantially change.

BTW, I couldn't find cider vinegar when I made the recipe and I used the regular white vinegar made from Cane. It is too tart. If I had to use that vinegar again I'd cut back to 3/4 cup of vinegar and use about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar.

Anonymous said...

good hearing from you billie. thanks for the suggestion on the cooking magazine.

i will let you know how the carrots turn out.

are you having company for thanksgiving? if so, they are in for a real treat!

teresa

Billie Mercer said...

Teresa, We are invited somewhere for T'day but they are great cooks too. I'll bring along a thing or two but I'm not doing the whole dinner. It will be a great feast I'm sure.