Pickle Recipes - Fennel Pickles

This is a large recipe but you can always cut it down.

3-4 Handfuls of grape leaves
15 pounds of pickling cucumbers
4 tablespoons peppercorns (I prefer black, but use what you have)
2 tablespoons whole allspice
Zest of 4 lemons
1/2 cup fennel seeds
16 fennel fronds
1 large bunch of parsley
1 cup white wine vinegar
2 gallons water
1 1/2 cup salt

Lay half the leaves in the bottom of your pickling crock. Wash your cucumbers. Layer the cucumers in the crock with teh pepper, allspice, lemon zest, fennel and parsley. Add the vinegar to the water and dissolve the salt to make your brine. Cover the cucumbers with the brine. Spread the remaining grape leaves on top. Weight the cucumbers down to keep them submerged. You can use a plastic bag filled with leftover brine or with a plate topped with a clean weight. Cover the crock with a cloth and store it at room temperature.

You will see bubbles forming in the brine within 3 days. If white scum forms on top of the birn, skim it off once per day and clean off your weights. The pickles will be ready in 2 to 3 weeks when the bubbles have stopped forming and the pickles are sour and pickle green throughout.

Once fermentation is complete, strain off the brine into a non-reactive pot. Bring the brine to a boil and then simmer it for 5 minutes. Skim of the scum that forms. Then let it cool. Rinse the pickles in cold water and drain them.

If you are going to store the pickles in the fridge, pack them into jars and cover them with the cooled brine. You can add fresh spices if you want.

If you are going to can them, pack the pickles into jars, cover them with hot brine (leaving 1/2 inch of headspace) and boiling-water bath them for 10 minues for pints or 15 minutes for quarts.

Pickle Recipes - Wine Kraut

8 Pounds Trimmed Head Cabbage (white)
5 Tablespoons Pickling Salt
3 Teaspons Caraway Seeds
3/4 Cup dry white wine

Quarter and core the cabbage then shred it very thin. You can use a cabbage shredder if you have one or a good old knife. Mix the salt, caraway seeds and cabbage. Make sure the cabbage is well covered with the salt and everything is thoroughly mixed. Put this mixture into a crock and weight it down with a food grade plastic bag filled with brine.

Brine: 1 1/2 tablespoons salt per quart of water

You can also cover the cabbage with a plate and top the plate with clean weights (like washed rocks or bricks).

After 24 hours remove the weights and add the wine to the mixture. Replce the weights. The saurkraut will ferment for at least 2 weeks. Each day you should check to see if any scum has formed and if it has remove it and wash the plates and weights. After two weeks start tasting it. When the sauerkraut is ready it will be pale gold and have a flavor that you like. Fermentation can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks depending on the temperature. The colder it is the longer it will take.

This recipe is safe to can if you are into canning. The sauerkraut should be processed in a hot water bath for 20 minutes for pints or 25 minutes for quarts.