September 5th, 2008 - Found a use for cauliflower
I mentioned that when making the pickles, I put some cauliflower and carrots into the leftover brine. I’ve already enjoyed the ones I put in the Zing Dill Beans and they tasted just like the dill beans do, except with a different texture. In other words, lovely since I adore the dill beans. For lunch today, I’m eating the ones I put in with the dill pickle brine.
The cauliflower is awesome! The carrot I just tried doesn’t work so well. Maybe it needs to sit longer since it’s a harder vegetable. Not sure. Will try again in another few days. I have another head of cauliflower in the fridge that will be cut up tonight and brined. I’m so delighted as it just wasn’t tasty, even with dip, this summer.
I had been wondering if any nutrition was lost by pickling. Given that fermentation is a far longer tradition than canning or freezing is, I suspected it would be fine. But I had to know. Surprisingly, it’s rather difficult to find anything about this. I ended up at Nutrition Data and compared 100 grams of Pickles, cucumber, dill or kosher dill to 100 grams of Cucumber, with peel, raw. Their numbers are pretty close, although the pickles have more calcium (why?), Vitamin A (?), Vitamin K, and sodium (obviously). The cukes have more Vitamin C and a bit more of some of the B vitamins.
Now I just need to see if anyone advises against canning dill pickles other than cucumbers and beans. I’ve never actually seen a recipe for pickled cauliflower or carrots, but I have for a lot of other veggies (green tomatoes, onions, asparagus, corn, and don’t forget watermelon rind!). They all seem to use 10 minutes processing time, so I feel pretty comfortable using that with cauliflower and carrots. Especially since I will not be making an entire jar of either one; they’d just be additions to jars of beans or cukes.
I’m also having an actual dill pickle with lunch. I tried one this morning and it transported me back to childhood, just like tasting the dill bean did the other day. I am so thrilled about this I hope to buy a few pounds of cukes at the market tomorrow and will be planting my own next spring! (My lemon cucumbers didn’t germinate this year, and I didn’t mind at first since I only eat a few on salads anyway.) I didn’t realize how pickles are far easier than everything else I’ve tried canning since the cooking is just of the brine and that’s really simple!