The Pickle Project with Shirley Raye Redmond

Today, Wednesday, November 14 is Pickle Day. Everyone in my family has a different favorite. I’ll bet you do too. My son loves sweet gherkins. My daughter prefers zesty garlic dill, and my hubby likes pickled okra.

Personally, I’ve always loved my Aunt Peggy’s pickles better than any I’ve ever tried. They are a pleasant bluish green color and taste both sweet and sour. Over the years I’ve begged for her recipe. Each time I asked, Aunt Peggy said she couldn’t remember how she made them or where her
cookbook was. I should have been more persistent because now Aunt Peggy is elderly and living in a nursing home. She doesn’t’ remember making her delicious pickles at all.

Not long ago, I made it my mission to peruse cookbooks and cooking blogs to try to find a recipe that would produce pickles like Aunt Peggy used to make. I asked my friends who were canning queens for their sweet and sour pickle recipes. The pursuit led to a lot of pickle making. I even became rather adventuresome, learning to pickle watermelon rind, pears and even peppers.

At a roadside stand on a recent road trip through Georgia, I noticed brightly colored pickles for sale—orange, red, green, yellow and even purple. Kool-Aid pickles, the sales woman told me. I didn’t buy a jar because I would be flying home to New Mexico and knew I wouldn’t be allowed to carry them on the plane.

At my first opportunity, I went online to google a recipe for Kool-Aid pickles. I had a hunch that as those bluish green ones looked so much like Aunt Peggy’s, I hoped they might taste like hers too. The Taste of Home website posted a recipe calling for one 32-ounce jar of whole dill pickles, undrained, and two-thirds cup of sugar, and one envelope of unsweetened Kool-Aid mix in a any flavor. I chose lime.

Following the recipe, I drained the pickles, reserving the juice to mix with the sugar and the Kool-Aid. I sliced the pickles into “pennies” and returned them to the jar. Then I poured the juice mixture back into the jar and kept them refrigerated for a week before allowing myself to taste them.

And guess what? They taste just like Aunt Peggy’s pickles! I was in heaven! Then I became more adventurous and tried the same thing using cherry Kool-Aid. Between now and Christmas I may become a pickle princess, experimenting with blue raspberry and orange.

Do you have a favorite pickle? I’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for Solve by Christmas by Amber Schamel. 

 Happy Pickle Day!

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An award-winning writer and frequent conference speaker, Shirley Raye Redmond is the author of three inspirational novels, PRUDENCE PURSUED, VIPER’S NEST, and AMANDA’S BEAU, as well as two dozen children’s books, including LEWIS & CLARK: A PRAIRIE DOG FOR THE PRESIDENT (Random House), which was a Children’s Book of the Month Club selection. Touch bases at shirleyrayeredmond.com or Facebook.