Charlie Boy’s Swamp Pickles and The Best Granola Ever Made

It’s picklin’ season! Actually, I like to preserve all year ‘round – citrus fruits peak in mid-winter, so that’s the best time to make marmalade. Late spring is the time for freezing and jamming rhubarb and strawberries. But midsummer through the end of fall is the busiest time in the canner’s kitchen.
 With all the stuff we’re getting through our CSA, the canning kettle is on the stove several times a week. I prefer to do small batches a couple times a week, rather than a three day round the clock blitz. And so much of the stuff can actually be done in stages – cut and salt cucumbers overnight, for instance, then pickle them the next day.

Chuck is a big fan of bread-and-butter pickles, which I’ve made for years. However, he likes his spicy – really spicy. I’ve played around with stuffing the jars with those dried little hot pepper pods that you can buy in bulk at the Chinese market. But the pickles are never hot enough to suit.

So, this year, Chuck took over the B&B’s. I fled the kitchen to the relative safety of the living room, where I could listen and cringe. Many pots were rattled and jars clinked for the next hour. He finally emerged, looking victorious with the finished product in hand. Which, to be brutally honest, looked awful. Like he’d pickled them in swamp  water or runoff from a Superfund site. Are those cucumbers floating around in there – or eyelids? Seems that, instead of mustard seed (which he couldn’t find), he put in the same amount of powdered mustard as seed called for in the recipe. So not only are the pickles simply hot from the peppers, but they are sinus-blasting due to the pungency of the mustard. And a bit too salty; rinsing the salt off the pickles has to be thorough. However, these are mere rookie mistakes. The crinkle-cut chips are deliciously crispy and I think they’ll be even better one they’ve had a couple of weeks for the flavors to meld.

Chuck also wanted homemade granola, which I don’t make often enough. So, I gave him some guidelines, and set him loose. It's with mixed feeling that I report that his granola was the best ever. Just the right balance of toasty cereals and sweetness, dammit. Asked about the ratio of his dried fruit mixture, he smugly replied that it's a "trade secret".  I kid; it’s really very gratifying when the student surpasses the master. Well done, Grasshopper!