Dill Crock

[DaBee]

I have a huge old crock with a lid that was my Grandmother Emma's. I love to make the Euell Gibbon's type of crock dills with all kind of veges from the garden in it.
I was wondering if any of y'all ever do this? It can also be done in a gallon jar, but the large pottery crocks are the best to use.
I have a major abundance of beets this year and was thinking about trying a separate crock of beet pickles. Have y'all ever heard of or tried this? My cucs aren't in yet and I think I have enough time before they're abundant to try it.
Wha cha think?

[Becky Davis]

I love pickled beets. Never made them though. My dill pickles turned out too soft. Not crunchy. But yeah, I have heard of folks using a crock to pickle just about anything. Even a few people got pickled from a crock.

[Southwindcome]

I often have something fermenting on the floor in a crock. I've made pickles, pickled peppers, and hot sauce. The hot sauce is good. I'm not completely happy with the flavor of the pickled cukes and peppers. Perhaps it's technique or recipe; that the concept is sound, just the execution is flawed. I will make hot sauce again, but will probably limit my pickling to working on the stove.

Some of my experimenting resulted from having extra produce to deal with. This year I'll can and freeze what we're likely to eat and sell the rest.

[DaBee]

Are you saying that you make crock dills, SWC or that some inadvertent spoilage that ends up in a crock on the floor? The crock dills that I have made since the 70s are the best I've ever eaten, if I do say so myself.
Are you growing beets?

This year I put in a large garden because I had full intentions of selling at the Farmer's Market. It hasn't happened. With RA, it feels almost impossible to move around in the mornings and that problems has increased tremendously in the last few months. That makes it way too difficult to do all the prep and early set-up for the Farmer's Market. It makes me sad that I couldn't pull it off. I was looking forward to the experience and the money. Thing is - I've got lots of extras that I don't know what to do with. Everything except the amaranth is going bonkers. I'm harvesting the rest of the pak choy this morning and will blanche and freeze it. Still have the rest of the chard and spinach to do. I can barely keep up with it all and have a problem seeing anything go to waste.
Do you know of a place that I can take my extra produce to as a donation? I'll ask Carroll County Fresh, also, as that was suppose to be one of their projects. I just wondered if anyone that does the Farmer's Markets knows of what folks to with all of their left-overs....if there is any. My preference would be folks that are in need.

[Southwindcome]

Nothing spoiled. Guess my recipes weren't much good. I never made crock dills. Maybe this year. I'll try again. Dill is ready before cukes. I will freeze some dill.

I'm not growing beets.

Perhaps restaurants could use your fresh produce.

[DaBee]

I bet that your pickles , peppers and hot sauce are awesome. Maybe you just need a little variation on the theme.
What's your technique for freezing dill? Does it end up being OK to use in pickling?

[Southwindcome]

I bet that your pickles , peppers and hot sauce are awesome. Maybe you just need a little variation on the theme.
What's your technique for freezing dill? Does it end up being OK to use in pickling?

Double bag it. And then don't keep it very long because the smell permeates everything in the freezer. I need to get one of those vacuum-sealing devices. It works fine for pickling after thawing.

[RichR]

I can vouch that Ron's hot sauce is very, very good!

[Becky Davis]

Deb, have you tried Voltaren Jel? It is prescription and I think it is pretty wonderful. It is primarily for joint pain in osteoarthritis, but works on strains and pains too. I have used it on my knees and last night I could not sleep for the pain in my leg. I remembered the jel and by golly, it stopped hurting and I was out in twenty minutes. Ask your doctor about it. He may have samples. That is how I got it.

[DaBee]

My dill is at it's prime and the cucumbers have just started to be ready to pick - along with garlic and onions ready to go, along with the last of the snow peas......I'm going to put my crock together on Thursday. This brings back wonderful memories and I love the aromas and flavors that ensue.

SWC - This is the best recipe for crock dills:

Euell Gibbons' Dill Crock

For the youngsters in our midst, Euell Gibbons was an outdoorsman and proponent of wild, foraged foods. Gibbons achieved "Thoreau-esque" folk hero status during the 1960s and 1970s through best-selling books such as "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" and "Stalking the Healthful Herbs". This article of his originally appeared in Organic Gardening and was later republished in "Stocking Up".

Naturally, I got started at this tasty sport with wild foods. A nearby path of wild Jerusalem artichokes had yielded a bumper crop, and I wanted to preserve some. I used a gallon-size glass jar, getting all of these jars I wanted from a nearby school cafeteria.

Packing a layer of dill on the bottom of the jar, I added several cloves of garlic, a few red tabasco peppers, then some cored and peeled Jerusalem artichokes, plus another layer of dill. With room still left, I looked around for other things to add. The winter onions had great bunches of top sets, so I peeled a few and made a layer of them. Then I dug up some of the surplus onions and used the bottom sets - shaped like huge cloves of garlic - to make still another layer. I then put in a layer of cauliflower picked apart into small florets, and added some red sweet pepper cut in strips, along with a handful or so of nasturtium buds.

This was all covered with a brine made by adding three-fourths of a measure of salt to 10 measures of water. I added some cider vinegar too, but only 1/4 cup to the whole gallon. I topped the whole thing with some more dill, set a small saucer weighted with a rock on top to keep everything below the brine, and then let it cure at room temperature.

After 2 weeks I decided it must be finŽished. The Jerusalem artichokes were superb, crisp and delicious. The winter onions, both the top and bottom sets, were the best pickled onions I ever tasted. The cauliflower florets all disappeared the first time I let my grandŽchildren taste them, while the nasturtium buds make better capers than capers do.

The next summer I determined to get started early and keep a huge dill crock running all season. Any size crock can be used, from 1 gallon up. I use a 10-gallon one and wish it were bigger. Never try to use a set recipe for a dill crock, but rather let each one be a separate and original "creation." I plant plenty of dill, and keep planting some every few weeks so I'll always have some on hand at just the right stage.

What is good in a dill crock? Nearly any kind of firm, crisp vegetable. Green beans are perfect, and wax beans also very good. These are the only two things cooked before being added to the brine, and they should be cooked not more than about 3 minutes. And small green tomatoes are great. Nothing else so nice ever happened to a cauliflower. Just break the head up into small florets, and drop it into the dilled brine. In a week or two-the finest dilled cauliflower pickle ever tasted.

If you have winter onions, clean some sets and put them in the crock. It's a tedious job, but the results are worth it. Not only do they add to the flavor of all the rest of the ingredients in the jar, but the little onions themselves are superb. If you don't have winŽter onions, you can sometimes buy small pickling onions on the market and use them. If not, just take ordinary onions and slice them crosswise into three or four sections. These will come apart after curing, but so what? They are simply great pickled onion rings. I've even cut off the white part of scalŽlions and thrown them in the brine, with some success, and one late-fall dill crock was flaŽvored with white sections of leek, which did it wonders.

To preserve these pickles, pack them in hot, scalded quart jars along with some fresh dill. Strain the brine, bring to a boil, and pour over pickles, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. (You can also make new brine using 1/2 cup salt and 4 cups vinegar to 1 gallon water, but the old brine is much more flavorful.) Seal and process in a boiling-water bath for 25 minutes.