Refigerator Pickles & Pasta
Tried something new this past weekend. Refrigerator Dill Pickles. Yep, I made 3 jars of pickles from some canning cucumbers I picked up at the UCI farm market. I wasn't able to put the pickles in pint jars because they were too tall but I found some comparable size jars that were taller. Since they don't need to be heated with a pressure cooker or hot water bath these were perfect. The recipe is simple and includes 5 herbs and spices, cucumbers, and vinegar/water. The only oops... I didn't use the right ratio of water to vinegar. However, that said, I now know how to make a basic refrigerator dill!
The pickles actually turned out nice and crisp. Since I added too much vinegar you can't taste a lot of dill but I will probably add more dill weed or a combination of dill weed and dill seed to get more of a dill flavor anyway. So, now that I've got the first attempt out of the way I'll be trying more after these are gone.
The boys made some ravioli and linguini this weekend. The ravioli were filled with cheeses and turned out really good! We paired the ravioli with a roasted garlic cream sauce and tomato spinach cream sauce. Our dinner was so good I surreptitiously licked my pasta bowl clean. Well, okay I used a piece of bread but still... It was very worth it and gone so fast we didn't get any pictures.
I finished off the day by making a cousin's recipe of Tomatoes Confit which is a fancy way of saying roasted tomatoes with garlic, thyme, and bacon. The smokiness of the bacon (Trader Joe's Bacon Ends and Pieces are the best) infuse with the tomatoes (this time I used heirloom tomatoes from the UCI farm market) and the taste is amazing. The finished tomatoes go great in a Caprese Panini or in a wrap with chicken and provolone. I've even had them on a grilled salad with roasted garlic vinaigrette. The first day I usually eat them as a side dish because they taste so good coming out of the pan. After they've sat in a container overnight the juices cover them and they keep in the refrigerator for a couple weeks. Not that they ever last that long in ours.
The pickles actually turned out nice and crisp. Since I added too much vinegar you can't taste a lot of dill but I will probably add more dill weed or a combination of dill weed and dill seed to get more of a dill flavor anyway. So, now that I've got the first attempt out of the way I'll be trying more after these are gone.
The boys made some ravioli and linguini this weekend. The ravioli were filled with cheeses and turned out really good! We paired the ravioli with a roasted garlic cream sauce and tomato spinach cream sauce. Our dinner was so good I surreptitiously licked my pasta bowl clean. Well, okay I used a piece of bread but still... It was very worth it and gone so fast we didn't get any pictures.
I finished off the day by making a cousin's recipe of Tomatoes Confit which is a fancy way of saying roasted tomatoes with garlic, thyme, and bacon. The smokiness of the bacon (Trader Joe's Bacon Ends and Pieces are the best) infuse with the tomatoes (this time I used heirloom tomatoes from the UCI farm market) and the taste is amazing. The finished tomatoes go great in a Caprese Panini or in a wrap with chicken and provolone. I've even had them on a grilled salad with roasted garlic vinaigrette. The first day I usually eat them as a side dish because they taste so good coming out of the pan. After they've sat in a container overnight the juices cover them and they keep in the refrigerator for a couple weeks. Not that they ever last that long in ours.
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