Rainbow Quickle: the Quick Spring Pickle!
My daughter and I have a tradition of visiting our local farmer’s market at least once a month. Nowhere else can you get the freshest, juiciest, most in-season local produce than the farmer’s market. They don’t always have the best prices or the produce that will last the longest (like green bananas from the grocery store), but it gives you a good idea of what to eat right now that is good for you. We live in California, where everything grows, so it’s extra fun for us to shop the rainbow.
This week, my daughter wanted to make a “quick spring pickle,” or “Quickle,” if you will.
She picked up crispy Persian cucumbers, red carrots, shallots, garlic, fresh dill, and bright red radishes. Since her idea was as visual as it was tasty, she prepared her ingredients in an attractive, artistic manner. It’s been a long, dull winter of gray, rainy days, and this bright, zesty treat was just what we needed to get in the mood for Spring!
Ingredients and supplies you will need:
- persian cucumbers
- fresh dill
- radishes or carrots or any other hard raw edible vegetable
- shallots or onions
- garlic
- course ground pepper
- apple cider vinegar
- clean mason jars with lids
First, she cut her cumbers in slices, leaves and flower shapes (see picture above).
Then she notched out petal shapes in sliced radish discs (see picture above).
She sliced her shallots and garlic thin and pulled off small sprigs of fresh dill (see pictures above). It smelled so good!
With all ingredients prepped in individual bowls (and an added bowl of coarse pepper) she was ready to combine her “Quickle” ingredients.
Directions for Pickling:
1. She filled her 15 oz wide mouth mason jars with the various ingredients and then topped them with a pinch of pepper and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.
2. Then she filled the jar with water to the top of the screw line. She popped on the lid and put them immediately in the refrigerator for later use.
3. “Quickles” are ready to eat in as little as 30 minutes but will last up to a week in the refrigerator.
You can even keep adding ingredients to the vinegar to keep the quickle going. The red carrots in our “quickle” turned the vinegar pink but that didn’t bother us at all because we love pink!
