Pickles

I've learned to live without decent dill pickles.  They just don't exist here.  They have jars that wear labels that say dill on the front, but it's pretty much false advertising.  They have dill plant floating around inside and that some how qualifies it to be deemed a dill pickle.  But friends, they are not really that great or very dill, to say the least.  So I did what any girl would do.  I tried to make my own.  

I looked up a recipe, rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  

I found some decent looking cucumbers.

Then I discovered that the dill flavor actually comes from dill seed and not dill plant.  When I went to the spices row in the grocery store I could not find any dill seed.  I could only find dried dill plant.  I stood there for a little bit trying to decide what to do.  I turned myself around and marched right into the nursery and picked up a packet of dill seed.  

Ta Da!

I could already taste the dill pickles.  

Next, I chopped up my cucumber, threw in the spices and then shoved those pickle slices right into the jar.

The recipe I found used apple cider vinegar.  Seemed good to me.  I put all the ingredients together (all whopping 3 of them) and made the brine.

Next you poor the brine over your pre-pickles and voila!  Put the lid on, put it in the fridge and wait a couple days.  And that's what I did.

My first batch was alright.  They were definitely dill, but the apple cider was so strong I wasn't a fan.

So I made them again, but this time with regular old white vinegar.  

Here is a video of me sampling my pickles after the 48 hour wait.  And for those of you who catch the Andy Griffith show reference, you get a gold star.

Alright, here's my thought.  They weren't great.  I'll admit it.  They weren't terrible either, but just not the dill pickle I was hoping for.  Looks like it's back to the drawing board.