Quick Pickled Radish

Quick Pickled Radish
3 parts water
3 parts apple cider vinegar
2 parts granulated (white) sugar
1 part kosher salt
pickling spices, as desired
shaved radish slices

Bring all ingredients except radish to a boil. Add the radish, ensure they are submerged and leave to cool.

Crab Cakes Take Two

• Crab cakes
• Roasted sweet corn and cherry tomato salad
• Pickled watermelon radish
• Lemon herb aioli
• Microgreens

Bean Salad

You've heard of three bean salad. Well this is one of my combination of beans salad. I think it includes white navy beans, turtle beans, orange lentils, green mung beans, and split peas. Along with that, I put in chopped yellow, red, and orange bell peppers, pickled cucumber, pickled red onion, pickled mustard seeds, and some green curry seasoning. 

Chritmas Dinner In August

Not too long ago at work we had an entire Christmas dinner in August. We had a feast with all the fixings and afterwards felt happy and stuffed. Our Christmas dinner consisted of Challah bread and butter, different pickles, chutneys, and preserves, honey thyme carrots, peas, creamy mashed potatoes, stuffing, a brined turkey breast with gravy, pumpkin pie, and homemade vanilla ice cream.

fresh Challah bread

mustard pickles, cranberry sauce, red pepper jelly, and pickled peppers

brined turkey breast

gravy

honey and thyme glazed carrots

creamy mashed potatoes

the entire feast

stuffing

Kinda Strange Pasta Salad

What happens when you take some leftover penne, some random salad vinaigrette, pickled mustard seeds, pickled red onion, pickled cucumber, and pickled peppers? Well you actually get quite a tasty pasta salad, although maybe a wee bit acidic. Packed full of lots of flavor and it gets better with age.

How Many Different Ways Can You Pickle A Watermelon?

Some of my experiments lately have involved pickling watermelon. I have probably tried every method in the book.

1. Regular pickling liquor
2. Pickling liquor with added herbs and spices
3. 3:2:1 pickling liquor: acid, sugar, water
4. Regular pickling under compression
5.  Pickling with herbs under compression
6. 3:2:1  pickling under compression
7. Compression then pickling
8. Quick compression

Every method makes the watermelon a different color or texture; ranging from pastel pink to tuna pink and firm to mushy. The truth is, it is incredibly difficult to pickle something that is 99% water!

Thanksgiving Dinner Canapés

Thanksgiving Dinner Canapés
caramelized red onion biscuits
butternut squash purée (or alternately sweet potato purée)
cranberry chutney/sauce (chunky, whole berry, not jelly and preferably homemade)
pickles

I baked my own vegan biscuits, adding in caramelized red onions to the dough for more flavor. I put my purée in a piping bag fitted with a star tip and piped a swirl onto each biscuit. Then I topped with a dollop of cranberry chutney, and cut my pickles into little half-moon shapes for a garnish.

I think this canapé is quite colorful and something different - more rustic ingredients presented in an elegant way. They were very much appreciated. The flavors balanced very well together - the purée and onions were sweet, the biscuit and pickle salty, the chutney tart, and the pickle acidic. Someone told me the pickle absolutely makes the canapé. I got inspiration for this hors d'oeuvre from Thanksgiving dinner ingredients.