What to Do with Overgrown Cucumbers

Overgrown Cucumbers = Red Hot Pickles

Miss a couple days in the garden, and you’ll find yourself with a supply of overgrown vegetables and a sinking feeling that tells you that you’re being wasteful. That’s what happened to me this week. I only have two cucumber vines, but they really know how to produce. I wish they would have taught my squash and zucchini something about producing - I didn’t get one single squash or zucchini from my garden this year! Thankfully, my mother shared her harvest.

I started to throw these guys away, but then I remembered what my mom used to do with overgrown cucumbers. She made Red Hot Pickles. My family and I just LOVE those crispy, crunchy things. We eat them as fast as we can get them. She hasn’t made them in the last couple of years, but when I started talking to her about them, she managed to produce one last jar from her pantry - YUM!

I don’t have her exact recipe, but it’s similar to this one - Red Hot Pickles at cooks.com. It’s pretty much like other pickle recipes, except that you add red hot candy (sometimes called cinnamon imperials) and cinnamon sticks. The end product is a pickle that tastes something like a spiced apple. It’s probably not something you’d want to put on a hamburger, but it’s GREAT with almost any other dish.

Keeping it real,