Pickles!

Dennis helped me make pickles earlier this month! This was actually a bit of an experiment since I used Splenda instead of sugar because of the whole low-carb diet thing for him. I wanted to see if it would muddy the color or clarity or taste. The amount I used in the carrots, beets, and fennel is so small I'm sure it won't matter, but we've been wanting to make sweet pickled red onions ever since we had them on some tiny Moroccan spiced lamb burgers at one of our favorite local restaurants, The Hob Nob in Alameda. And now that we've perfected the recipe and method for making flax bread buns, it's lamb burger time baby!

Pickles with washi tape labels? Yes please!

The beets are spiced with clove, cardamom, star anise, allspice, and cinnamon. The fennel is just my plain picking spice blend, the recipe for which can be found here. The carrots have some of the pickling spice blend with extra whole cumin, coriander, mustard seed, and bay. And the sweet onions have star anise, cinnamon, and bay.

I had a handful of each kind of veggie left and I was going to make a mixed jar, but I ran out of vinegar by the end of the day. (These are big jars!) So I put them in a tupperware in the fridge and poured vinegar over them the next day for quick pickles instead! Om nom nom.