Pickles

I have home-made pickled carrots, pickled green chillies and pickled cucumber in my fridge... and am making another new batch of pickled green chillies plus trying to pickle something new - small red onions.

It's deliciously easy to make!

Take any glass bottle. I use either recycled jam or pasta sauce bottles. Make sure it's sterilized and dry.

The vinegar preparation: Half fill the bottles with vinegar (I use SW distilled vinegar, about $2.30 from Shop&Save) and match whatever amount of vinegar with sugar i.e half cup vinegar / half cup sugar and then add in 2-3 teaspoon of salt. Shake the bottle vigorously to dissolve the sugar and salt.

For pickled cucumbers, chop it up whatever way you want.. just sprinkle some salt over each layer. Leave for at least 4 hours so that the water content in the cucumber drains out (I lost patience with my previous batch and ended up with soggy cucumber pickles. Not nice!) Rinse with cold water and drain well, then put them in the bottled vinegar. Done.

For pickled carrots or pickled green chillies, I just slice and throw them into the bottled vinegar. ===== The pickled sliced carrots is lovely over any salads while crunchy pickled green chillies are a must for my zhi-char takeaways.

Now for the pickled onions... I haven't decided what to do yet. I did cry over them earlier - uncontrollably in fact! Hmm... Pickle them whole - just dump them into the bottled vinegar? But how am I going to eat whole pickled red onions? Hmm... guess I have to slice, cry a bit more, sprinkle salt over them and wait till tomorrow before throwing them into the bottle.

Honestly, I have no idea what pickled onions go well with. But hey, I find the peeling, chopping and slicing therapeutic... and if ever you come to my place and find one too many bottles of strange pickles in the fridge, check me in.