Pickled adventures

For years now, Gloria has asked me to make giardiniera for her. For those of you not familiar with this term, it's an Italian style of pickled vegetables generally with cauliflower and peppers. I finally found a recipe that I liked and yesterday I prepared a couple of quart jars that will be ready to eat in a few days. Glo is ecstatic because she has a good memory of her family preparing such goodies during the holidays when she was a kid. I hope I have recreated this for her. This particular recipe comes courtesy of Mrs. Wheelbarrow's food blog. I also need to give props to my resident dingoes and kitchen helpers who kept me company and told me stories of the Outback while I was cooking. This process of pickling vegetables in this manner takes all weekend and I can't wait to taste them come Monday morning. For those of you interested, you can get the recipe at Mrs. Wheelbarrow's website or if you'll bear with me for a bit longer, I'll show you what I did. I started out with good vegetables. Some I picked up at our local Farmers Mkt and the rest at the grocery store. I try to use organic when I can. My mix of vegetables included cauliflower, carrots, sweet bell pepper, celery, garlic, a few mushrooms and a couple of Serrano peppers from the garden. The first step is to cut your produce into manageable pieces that will fit into your jars. I followed the recipe and thought I had way too many vegetables.

After I cut everything up I had to brine the veg in water with a half cup of kosher salt added. I submerged the veg by laying a plate on top to keep everything under water. This brine lasts for eight to twelve hours on the counter.

Once the veg was brined, I rinsed the salt off thoroughly and let them drain in the sink. While draining, I prepared my dressing in the quart jars. Extra virgin olive oil, grapeseed oil, white vinegar, oregano, cracked peppercorns and celery seed. I shook up the jar of dressing to emulsify and split it between the two jars.

I then took the drained veg and packed them into the jars until full. The recipe was perfect and all the veg fit with a little packing in. I made another half recipe of the dressing to top off the jars before sealing.

These jars will sit on the counter for two days and then go into the fridge. They look beautiful, are very colorful and should taste delicious. I hope this satisfies Gloria's memory and brings her joy because that's why I made this. All of you following along can easily make this for yourselves or your families. Thanks for reading and enjoy. Caseman