Aug 27, 2010 If you like carrots. And if you like pickles (i.e. pickled beets, pickled hot peppers, pickled green beans). Why not pickled carrots? Adarsh, in particular, was not too enthusiastic about the idea. Mostly, I think, because I slapped his hand away from the gorgeous organic carrots I bought (well, technically he bought…) at the farmer’s market (just for the purpose of pickling!), that he was just dying to crunch into. He was further unimpressed with me and my hand-slapping when those gorgeous carrots went soft and turned into muffins instead – which he huffily called “carrot cemeteries” and then refused to eat… Gorgeous carrots, attempt #2! What I didn’t realize when I embarked on this vinegar-soaked adventure, was that of the art pickle-making is a flippin’ *$#@load of work fun, but laborious task. The peeling, oh the peeling! . I love my mother all the more for the number carrots she has peeled in her life, while I feigned deafness to her calls for assistance. Aside from removing their peel, the carrots didn’t really give me too much trouble. The pickling concept is very simple, and not nearly as scary as it may seem to virgin pickle-makers. All you have to do is prepare that-which-is-to-be-pickled by cutting it into uniform sized pieces; prepare a brine of boiling vinegar, water, and salt; pack the veggies into sterilized (boiled) jars along with some pickling spice, garlic, and fresh dill; pour the brine into the jars; and boil the jars with their lids on for 10 minutes. Ta da! Pickles. No sweat. (Well, some sweat. But mostly during the goshdarn peeling stage). You don’t need any fancy equipment to do your own preserving/canning/pickling at home. What you will need, besides the ingredients, are: the biggest pot you’ve got, a big pair of tongs with a rubber band secured around each tong (to prevent the jars from slipping out), glass jars and new lids (you can re-use jars, but you need brand-new lids every time – you can buy them separately and they’re cheap), and that’s it! The reference book I used is The Art of Preserving from Williams-Sonoma. It is a fabulous book, one that has accompanied me to the beach, the park, on the bus, and to bed. Yeah, people gave me strange looks. Did I care? Nope!
