Month 4 day 16: Pickles

Today I am making:
Pickled Garlic Vegetables, Food Network May 2010

Today I decided to try making pickled vegetables. Unfortunately, I forgot the garlic, which is probably the most important part-- I've always loved zesty garlic dill pickles. So hopefully these will taste ok, but I won't know until tomorrow. Unfortunately the liquid doesn't reach the top of the vegetables, so some of them won't get too flavored. I've always been a little worried about the idea of pickling, canning, fermenting, etc. at home, but these are not for long-term storage, and anyway there is so much vinegar, alcohol, and salt I feel like nothing will be able to grow. I'm excited to see how these taste tomorrow. This was super-fast-- just five minutes of boiling the liquid and about five minutes of chopping things, so if it works out well this will be a great recipe. Actually, I didn't add the spices in the recipe, but instead just used 2 Tbs. of McCormick pickling spice. But the recipe on the side of the bottle is for corned beef, which is sort of a different type of pickle, so I scooped out the allspice hoping that it would taste less like corned beef and more like normal pickles. I supplemented with a bit of red pepper flakes. G hates pickles, but he loves corned beef-- I wonder what he would think of this hybrid.