Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles {recipe}

We are pickle junkies. The girls love them. I love them. My husband loves them. Last year I made our first Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles. I decided my first foray into pickling would be an easy one. No canning bath, so no worries about totally screwing up and making everyone sick..apparently my canning faith was lacking. I used this recipe for my starting off point. It was so good, and so easy, that we made them a few times over the summer, switching it up as we went along. 

The great thing about this recipe is that it's pretty flexible. Yesterday I made 8 pint sized jars of pickles. Two jars of Sweet Fire pickles; bread and butter pickles with the addition of jalapenos, two Zucchini Bread and Butter Pickles, one Sweet Fire Zucchini Pickle, and the rest regular Bread and Butters. I used two medium sized zucchini, 8 kirby cucumbers, three onions and I doubled the vinegar/sugar mixture. (8 cups of sugar/vinegar each - I didn't need that much, but wasn't sure)

I could have made about three more jars w/ the leftover ingredients but I hadn't sterilized enough jars. Instead I took the rest of the ingredients, put them into a big bowl and put them in the fridge. Easy. The best part is that the pickles are ready in 24 hours! The original recipe says they'll last, "as long as you'd keep any other pickle in the fridge." Ours never last long. I bet we will be out of pickles (after I give away a few jars) in about a week. Seriously. 

Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles

 

Pickling cucumbers (or small/medium zucchini)
3 onions sliced
4 cups sugar
4 cups vinegar
1/3 cup plain salt
1 1/2 tsp each turmeric, mustard seed and celery seed

Combine sugar and vinegar in small saucepan over low heat to dissolve sugar.  Add spices.  Pack sliced cucumbers and onions in jar very tight, add liquid and spices, seal and refrigerate.

Sweet Fire Pickles:

Add sliced jalapeno peppers to taste. For each of my pint jars I used a half a jalapeno. They were extra spicy peppers.

Zucchini Sweet Fires:

I added two, small, whole serrano peppers and half a sliced jalapeno. 

Make some pickles this week. And if you do, let me know how they turn out. 

Thanks, Nancy, whoever you are. And thanks Louvenia Jane Cryer Burroughs!!! You made some awesome pickles. 

Happy Tuesday

-Erin