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,
I’m going to have to try the red hot pickles. If you have a blender you can add them to smoothies. Cucumbers are hydrating and contain silicon which is good for the skin and nails.
@Opal: Oh, I never thought of using cucumbers in a smoothie! What a great idea. I’ll have to try that. What do you suggest adding with it? Or would you just do the red hots alone with the other typical smoothie ingredients?
Can you use slicing cucumbers or only pickling cucumbers?