Make your own pickles!!!

So, here's the thing. Germany is a land full of pickles (Gurken..or as the English approximation is gherkin (or smtg like that)). But (almost) all of them have sugar in them! What's that about?

I have, on several occasions, had a craving for good ol' dill pickles--just the regular kind you get in the U.S. But upon searching, we came up empty-handed!

Our very own!

Upon a suggestion we tried 'salt pickles'..oi. Yup, no sugar. But also nothing other than salt! They were so salty that we poured out the brine, replaced it with normal water but...that didn't help much.

The search continued and finally we found a lead with the Russians :) We were visiting F's relatives (ca. 2 years ago) in Kaiserslautern. They have friends who are German-Russians and their pickles tasted like what we were looking for! So it would seem that we have the Russians to thank for the basic pickle recipe used in the States. We found a Russian store in Kiel and things were dandy.

However, fast-forward to a few months ago. Relief Society activity: a canned-goods-swap. You could bring 6 of anything in a canning jar, one to taste and 5 to trade. One woman skipped the jar and just made cookie packets. (All good by me :) ) Anyway, I finally had my excuse; I would try to make my own dill pickles.

And I did! (Fairly garlic heavy, but that's tasty too :) )
And then again, because we wanted some more. (Less garlic)
And then again a month later for another swap that a woman in our congregation had at her house (she apparently liked the first one so much and wanted to do it again!)

Hooray for pickles! They still don't taste as dill-y as the ones I'm remembering from the States, but that's okay. The main thing is that they don't have sugar.

Here's the recipe it was roughly based on (as you can see, red pepper flakes are an option too--haven't tried that yet; nor did I have any celery seed)

Forgot the dillweed in the picture...

And here's our recipe (for 2 pints (or 4 cups :) ):
1 1/2 lbs Kirby or Persian cucumbers (oder Einlegegurken, Schmorgurken)
2 tsp dill seed
1/2 garlic clove, peeled, smashed (therefore 1/4clove per glass because even 1/2 a clove/glass was a lot)
2 tsp mustard seed
Black peppercorn (ca 10/glass)
largish bunch of dill weed (ca. 1 Tb packed dill weed bzw. 3 Tb fluffy weed per glass)

1 c cider vinegar (or other vinegar.. We've done mix or just white)
1 c water
1 1/2 Tb pickling/kosher salt (or regular würde gehen)

• Wash + pat cucumbers dry, trim blossom ends (we also sliced them in quarters)
• (otherwise they don't stay good in the jar as long, however, since I'm not sure which end that is, I just trim both ends :) )
• Put spices/dill weed in sterilized jars
• Pack in the cucumbers on top
• Bring water, vinegar and salt to rolling boil and pour over pickles.
• If you want to seal them, the hot liquid should be enough. However, if they don't seal, you can put seal them in a hot water bath (this, of course, cooks them a bit so they'd be a bit softer. I never did that, but I also didn't need all of them to seal.)

For best taste, allow to sit at least 48 hours (in fridge if unsealed). They last for a few weeks in the fridge, 1 year on the shelf. For crispier pickles, use larger chunks or whole pickles.