The Frugal Pickle

For whatever reason, my cukes have yet to fruit out. So to kill time & sour cravings I put up 6 jars of watermelon rind pickles. They're GOOD. But other people don't like them. I & the children do, Mike won't touch them. Save the rinds from a giant watermelon, pare rind & scrape off most of pink. Cut into strips near aways of an inch. Double or triple this recipe for a whole or giant melon.

Soak in brine overnight, 1/4 C of salt to 1 qt. makes a good brine. Drain the next day, rinse & combine 1 & 1/4 C vinegar (I used a mix of cider & white) w/ 2 C sugar, 8 whole cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks, 1/4 tsp. mustard, allspice & ginger, a goodly dash of whole lemon & pepper from your grinder or what you've on hand. Boil until dissolved & as many rinds as can be covered (about 4 lbs.) may be boiled along for the ride. I like ours crunchy so I stop here but you can let them sit overnight in the brine weighted down & then boil again the next day for a softer pickle.

See my bell? I got tired of hog hollerin down the length of the house when I wanted something. Sound doesn't travel too well, but all of the children love the bell, drop everything & run when they hear it. I also let them ring it after they come so that helps. I felt pretentious at first, like I was summoning the footman but it's become much the same as our outdoor bell.

I don't have a picture of the finished product of this like I thought I did. This picture was for another post. Anyways jars of brine from pickles get saved & it wasn't uncommon some months ago to see little in the fridge but jars of brine, lol. I've been pickling the scapes from our garlic though & they're pretty good. I was looking to lacto ferment them but found nothing. I cut the papery tips off & chunk the rest of the scape into 1 inch pieces.

These all looked very pretty in the jars but you'll just have to take my word for it.