I tell gardeners this all the time: Grow what you can’t get enough of.
Beans suitable for drying, baking, soups and whatnot? Lots of them, because farmers at the farmers markets sell them as green beans. Tomatoes for freezing and canning? I plant enough to store 20 or 30 quarts at a time. That can get expensive when you buy them at the market.
And carrots. They’re tasty and versatile, of course. But once picked, if you cut off the greens you can keep them in sand in a cooler in the garage or cellar all winter. Or if you lack sand, you can even use layers of newspaper to prevent moisture from condensing on the root.
The fun part of that is you can grow so many different types. Anyone can do orange, but botanically, carrots come in many different colors: red, yellow, purple — even black. (I made mashed black carrots once and brought the leftovers to the office with my lunch. A co-worker said it looked like I was eating asphalt.) Some are sweeter; some are crunchier; some last longer, roast better, steam better or are better raw.
But if you grow a lot of carrots, you’re going to harvest them when they’re all different sizes. Some just aren’t going to be very big.
Even small, they have a lot more flavor than the “baby” carrots you buy in the store, which a chef friend of mine describes as flavorless, water-logged carrot-like things.
Those smaller carrots are perfect for this refrigerator pickle. You can cut full-sized carrots into sticks, but the baby carrots are so much easier.
Like any pickle, refrigerator or otherwise, you want to make sure your jars are very clean. Boil them for about 12 minutes, along with the canning rings, but not the lids, which should just be placed in the simmering water for about 10 minutes. I suppose you can process them in a boiling-water bath for about 10 minutes after you’ve canned them. The acid from the vinegar doesn’t require a hotter pressure-canner bath. But to be honest, these pickles have never lasted long enough to require shelf-stable canning processes.
FIRECRACKERS
Baby carrots (or carrot sticks) to fill 2 1-pint canning jars
1 cup water
1 cup honey
1½ cups cider vinegar
2 cloves garlic, halved
½ tsp. mustard seed
1½ tsp. pickling or kosher salt
2 tsp. hot pepper flake
2 whole, dried hot peppers (or to taste)
Place carrots, whole hot peppers and halved garlic in a clean, sterile glass jar.
Boil the water, honey, cider vinegar, mustard seed, salt and chili flakes for three to four minutes in a non-reactive pot.
Pour the brine over the carrots, filling to the top. Allow the carrots to cool before sealing. Refrigerate for four to seven days before eating.
Note: Refrigerator pickles can last several weeks, but we’ve never had a batch of these hang around that long.
Play with it: You can use any vinegar you like, but try to keep its acidity around 5%. Do the math to balance the water with the vinegar to keep the ratio right. Of course, you can use more or less hot pepper as you’d like. And maybe, if you like some smoke with your flame, you can try chipotle peppers instead of other dried hot pepper.
