stepstephens2
Enjoys Recycling
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I never expected to find myself on a quest for pickled turnips. If you told me before all this started that I would devote a year to chasing a crazy pickled vegetable, I would have told you that you were off your rocker. Some people dream big- buy a boat and sail the world, build their own business empire, travel to India and meditate with someone important... Me? I want to make my own pickled turnips.
Get this, I didn't even know what they were at first. I was given vegetable misdirection! Last year I was at my favorite Mediterranean restaurant and they gave me a side of these little HOT PINK square things. Mmm... yummy! And they were HOT PINK... did I mention that? The world needs more neon vegetables, I'm certain of it. So, I ask the waitress "What are these lovely little things?" She tells me pickled radishes. THE QUEST BEGINS.
It's now fall and I'm rummaging through seed catalogs and planning my attack. I decide upon the Cincinnati Market Radish, the description states that it is a rare heirloom dating back before the 1870's. More importantly, it is long and shaped almost like a carrot. This will make it so much easier to cut them up into little sticks. It's all so improbable that I would fall in love with radishes in any way, I keep thinking. I hated them as a child and had always made a point of refusing them as an adult. Oh well, pickling them must transform them in some magical way... right?
I make notes on my choice of seed in my garden notebook. It is one of those black and white speckled things that they make you keep a journal in at school, you know the one labeled MARBLE COMPOSITION? I do a sketch of how the radish will appear once fully grown. Don't look at me like that! It is too cold to plant anything and I am a frustrated gardener who is making sketches of the vegetables she wishes she was planting.
Flash forward to January- I have the seeds and am now planting them! I am so awesome. Luck would have it that radishes are fairly cold hardy so you can plant them earlier than a lot of other vegetables. My notes say that they will be ready for harvest in 35 days. That's like a blink of an eye in garden time. Should I look up recipes for pickled radishes now, I wonder? Nah... I'll just wait until they're ready.
And then, there they are 35 days later. I'm pulling radishes out of the ground like nobody's business. I'm cutting the green tops off an inch above the root (the greens will go to my chickens, such lucky girls!) I'm stacking radishes high in my big garden basket and dragging my harvest inside my kitchen. I'm washing them off now. I have left them to dry and I am Googling "pickled mediterranean radish recipe" on my computer only to discover that there is NO SUCH THING. The lovely snacks I had at the restaurant were actually pickled turnips and I am a fool. Oh, the anguish! I hate radishes and I have mistakenly grown about 200 of the stupid things. Ughh.
But fine, WHATEVER. I have turnip seeds in my seed collection that I bought from the dollar store. I will win this battle. I plant the turnips where the radishes were and dare them to be anything other than fabulous. The recipes I saw online also called for a few beets for coloring. This part will not be a problem since I am growing a plethora of beets for pickling and canning (a quest that I conquered 2 years ago, and another story altogether.)
The turnips took their sweet time, but if I may borrow from Mr. Tom Petty's Last Dance With MaryJane- they grew up tall and they grew up right. And then I pickled them. The End.
My Recipe (I cobbled together what I liked from different recipes suggested online.)
12 medium turnips
2 medium beets
4 1/2 tsp salt
1 lrg. garlic clove
2 1/2 cups distilled water (I hate my well water, it's too hard.)
4 1/2 cups white vinegar
3 lrg. widemouth jars
Cut the tops and bottoms off of the beets & radishes. Peel them & then slice them into about 1/2" x 1/4" slices. Cut the garlic in thin slivers and place in the bottom of the jars. Stack the turnips in jars with some of the beets at the bottom and some at the top. Mix up the pickling solution in a pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Pour the boiling solution over the vegetables and allow to cool for 1/2 hour on your counter. Then store in your fridge. I did sterilize the jars in the oven beforehand at 250 degrees for 20 minutes... because these are refrigerated pickles I don't think you need to, but I like the extra precaution, or whatever. Their taste had developed enough to eat by day 2 and they should stay good in the refrigerator for at least 6 months... but I doubt they will last that long because I've just eaten like 20 of the things while sitting here writing.
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It is the center of my existence to chase recipes till I win!! That is sooo what makes this hillarious to me 
. I HAVE to try that recipe when mine get ready!
