Pickle for your thoughts? That dainty little pinky finger makes me lost in my thoughts that involve a whole lot of baby love…

You know what’s almost as sweet as that chubby little hand? The pickles. That’s right. They’re dilly. They’re sour, but only a kind of sourness that doesn’t involve puckering; instead your tastebuds are savoring and wanting another bite. Also, these pickles are sweet. But a very, very subtle sweetness that makes you almost wonder if it really was there. This is due to one of the very unexpected ingredients, the basil.

Take your pickling cucumbers (these won’t work with regular cucumbers, too much water and they won’t be firm), and cut off the end where the blossom wilted off . Rinse them off.

Add 2.5 tablespoons of fine sea salt to four cups of water. I used tap and I didn’t die. And my pickles didn’t suck either.

For my “seasonings” I went a tad exotic here. Meaning, I foraged in my garden for literally whatever I could find. I had no fresh dill so I used about 2 tablespoons dried. I threw in some peeled baby onions from my garden, a few fresh basil tops for fun, and for the real kicker, I used SUNFLOWER leaves. This is because pickles need raspberry leaves or bay leaves even black tea leaves for tannin which keeps the pickle crunchy. But I had none of those things except for some wild sunflowers and their leaves looked tannin-y to me. So there you have it.

Put them all in the largest glass container that you have.

Seasonings first, pickles last. Fill with the salt water.

Then, here’s the important part: Fill up a brand new, clean Ziploc bag 1/4 to 1/2 with water. Be careful not to let the outside of the bag touch the sink or anything. Try to keep it clean. Then carefully stuff the bag into the container. If you have extra room then once its stuffed inside, unseal the Ziploc bag and add more water.

The point is to make a COMPLETE seal between the Ziploc bag and where the pickle water meets. You want absolutely NO air. This will allow the pickles to ferment properly.

Now set this bad boy into a cool, dark place for a few days and then check on it.

Four days later… Damnit! Guess what? MOLD!!! Take out the bag of water and discard. Use a paper towel and wipe all of the inside mold off that you can. Guess what my problem was? I needed a larger container since I wasn’t getting a good enough seal.

But as long as the brine and pickles still smell okay and don’t smell like a dead animal, you’re actually okay to continue! Also if you see this white cloudiness inside, it just means that there is yeast in there and it’s doing what it’s supposed to. So Carry on.

Now I’ve put it in a clean new jar. I didn’t add any extra water I simply poured it in, add another handful of dill since I lost some in the mold I wiped out, and then did the Ziploc bag seal again. Properly this time. Ferment for about 7 days.

No air getting in this time!

And I’m happy to report that these pickles turned out fantastic! No more mold on the second ferment. I let it go for another seven days. The brine smelled slightly sweet. But the pickles were… Delightfully crunchy {thanks to those sunflower leaves!} and they had a wonderful spectrum of flavor- salty, dilly, but also subtly and surprisingly sweet from that basil!

You can easily mix up the flavors for your own preference and add in some black tea (I will try that next time) for tannin but the process is the same.

But the most important things two remember when fermenting:

Make sure your ratio of salt to water is precise.

Make absolute sure that your vegetables are completely submerged in the brine and that there is a complete seal between the brine and the air. And with those two requirements fulfilled, your fermentation is safe and should be a success!