For future reference, and the world at large.

Makes crisp pickled vegetables – for softer pickles or brighter colours, blanch the vegetables first: Heavily salt a huge amount of water (in your stock pot), like ocean-salty, not make-you-want-to-retch-when-you-taste-it salty. Boil salt water, have iced water (large amount) at the ready. Cook the vegetables for a few minutes (less for green beans and softer veg.), then remove and ice bath to stop the cooking process. Proceed to next direction.

Collect 6 pint-size canning and/or other jars with lids; wash them. Yield: 6 pint-size jars filled with pickled vegetables, serves one especially hungry individual for several sittings, but more realistically serves 2-3 people per jar.

1 large pot boiling water. Boil jars and lids, especially if you’re unsure of how sanitary your dishwashing routine is – that is, boil the jars and lids, regardless of how clean you think you are.

Vegetables: anything hard-ish and delicious with vinegar, i.e. most anything.
Suggestions:

• carrots
• bell peppers (not green, they suck)
• green beans
• garlic cloves
• hot peppers
• celery
• radishes
• onions
• beets
• fennel
• butternut squash is a possibility but I’ve not tried it.
• asparagus (also an untested possibility)
• other root vegetables

Cut the veggies to fill the jars, pack them tightly, leave some space at the top.
Into the jars also: fresh herbs – dill , sage (I just tried it for the first time, so results are a mystery), thyme and bay leaves.

Pickling wonderment:

• 5 cups vinegar: I used a mixture of white and apple cider. White wine or champagne vinegar would also be nice. Dark vinegars will turn your veggies strange colours.
• ~2 cups water
• Spices:
1. Coupla tablespoons of salt. Adjust to taste – do NOT under-salt: that is a cooking sin and all will go poorly for you in the land if you do this habitually.
2. Likewise sugar. Adjust to taste.
3. Spice seeds: dill, anise(fennel), mustard, peppercorns – ‘bout 3 tablespoons total

Combine and bring to a boil. Do not stand directly overhead and inhale through your nose. Pour or ladle over veggies packed in jars. Seal the lids, let come to room temperature, then refrigerate – it may not totally cover the vegetables, but leave some space at the top. Let sit for four-plus days before imbibing.

These will last for a few months in the refrigerator. I just ate some out of the ‘fridge that are at least a year old and have no ill effects, but the vegetables will get softer with age and vinegar will be the predominate taste. An advantage to the non-blanching method is that the carrots are still crisp after many months. But seriously, eat these sooner rather than later.

DO NOT TAKE THEM OUT OF THE REFRIGERATOR FOR STORAGE – these don’t have pickling salt and aren’t properly processed to go on your great-grandmothers cellar shelf. If you don’t have space, throw away that almost-empty bottle of shitty, brand-name salad dressing. Also, the leftovers you’ll never eat. And take the empty Brita pitcher out of there. What is this! How long has it been since you cleaned this? Throw this away and this, put this in a smaller container (it saves space and has less air-space to both promote bacterial growth and dry out your food). There, now there’s plenty of room.

Serving suggestions: with eggs in the morning, over pulled pork on a sandwich, as a salad, whilst sipping mineral-y white wine in the park, as a digestive, as dinner, etc. etc. etc.