Monday's Menu

 This is a handy recipe to have on hand. Growing up and even in my young adult years every time someone mentioned bread and butter pickles, I wanted no part of them.

As far as I remember, I had never tried them. I guess they just didn't sound good to me so I refused them.

In more recent years, some of my favorite restaurant burgers have used them on their burgers rather than the traditional dill pickle. I have since decided that they are my favorite on a burger...

 or a sub...

or pretty much any other sandwich.

Yep. Complete turnaround on bread and butters. 

I think it was the name. I looked up why they are named that though. It has nothing to do with the flavor. And, frankly, the origin of the name seems a little mixed up too. The first thing I read said it came from a Depression era sandwich: buttered bread with pickles as the filling. Cheap ingredients that would provide your "bread and butter" for the meal.

The other story (and probably more likely) is that cucumber farmer family, the Fannings, traded their family recipe pickles with the grocer during hard times for bread and butter. So bread and butter pickles were born.

Either way, they've been a favorite since the day they came on to the scene.

I have been canning quite a few myself. But today's recipe  doesn't  have to be canned. You can make it with only a few ingredients. And they are yummy!

Why did I bother trying it? Well, I may have mentioned that cucumbers are masters of camouflage. I found a couple of monstrosities hidden quite well a few weeks ago.

I had two that had gotten humongous. The problem with that is they pretty much turn to mush when you try to can them once they get that big. They have too much water content and it just doesn't work.

Well, I had two of them. So it occurred to me to just make them into refrigerator pickles and see if that made them usable. So I gave this recipe a try.

The larger ones are literally hamburger patty size. And while they did soften, it was not mush but rather about like a jar of the ones you might buy at the store. 

The regular sized pickling cucumbers I had made up the rest of the jar with are perfectly crunchy enough that my eldest commented that she could hear me bite in to it at the other end of the dining table.

When I used to buy a cucumber for something and couldn't use it all, I would slice it up and add it to the leftover brine from our store bought pickles. After several days, they would have become pickles too.

I could definitely see making a smaller amount of this liquid and doing the same with your leftover cucumber here as well.

So, give it a try and let me know how it turns out.

This recipe originally came from here.

Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles

• 5½ cups (731.5 g) about 1½ pounds thinly sliced (about ¼-inch) pickling cucumbers
• 1½ tablespoons (1.5 tablespoons) kosher salt
• 1 cup (160 g) thinly sliced sweet onion
• 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (255 ml) white vinegar
• ½ cup (119.5 ml) apple cider vinegar
• ¼ cup (55 g) light brown sugar
• 1½ teaspoons (1.5 teaspoons) mustard seeds
• ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) celery seeds
• ⅛ teaspoon (0.13 teaspoon) ground turmeric

Combine cucumbers and salt in a large, shallow bowl; cover and chill 1½ hours. Move cucumbers into a colander and rinse thoroughly under cold water. Drain well, and return cucumbers to bowl. Add onion to the bowl and toss with the cucumbers.
Combine the granulated sugar, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds and ground turmeric in a medium saucepan; bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Pour the hot vinegar mixture over cucumber mixture; let stand at room temperature 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours. Store in an airtight container in refrigerator up to 1 month.