I've gone pickle mad! Here are two recipes for cucumbers when they are in abundance. Seriously I think that my cucumber plants are in conspiracy. I go out in the morning and the cucumbers are less than the length of my little finger, next day - enormous! To use them up I keep my cucumber jars over winter and fill them up over summer. These are refrigerator pickles, meaning they need to be kept in the fridge until used up. - so don't make too many!
Bread and butter cucumbers is a simple and delicious recipe, you can make sliced cucumbers or spears, or if you have lots of tiny ones, leave them whole. The fermented cucumber recipe is from my mother in law (as remembered by Val!). It originally comes from Ukraine. I now grow my own horseradish just for the leaves!
Fermented food is very good for you, but MUST be eaten fairly quickly. Unlike the bread and butter cucumbers, these will not keep for long as they contain garlic. If garlic is not handled correctly it can cause botulism, not something anyone wants. So, make them, leave them on the shelf for 2 days, open them and put them in the fridge, eat over the next 2 weeks. Any longer and I would throw them out. (or leave out the garlic!). For a great article on these cucumbers read the interesting blog post here by FoodieUkraine.com.
