Quick-pickle
Start with best-quality produce, and wash it well. (Run your containers through the dishwasher’s hot-water cycle before you begin.) Use these “refrigerator” pickles to perk up burgers, sandwiches, and cheese platters.
Basic Formula
Try pickling anything you’ve got a glut of, such as zucchini, tomatoes, corn, green beans, wax beans, cherry peppers, okra, or peaches; unripe produce, including green tomatoes and green strawberries; and even watermelon rinds that might otherwise be discarded.
1. Make the brine: Combine 1½ cups distilled white vinegar or apple-cider vinegar, ¾ cup water (½ cup for cucumbers), 2 teaspoons sugar, 2 tablespoons whole spices (such as peppercorns, juniper berries, coriander seeds, mustard seeds), 1 or 2 bay leaves, and 2 tablespoons coarse salt in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar and salt are dissolved.
2. Make pickles: Pack clean jars or airtight containers firmly with vegetables or fruit. Add boiling brine to cover completely. Let cool. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 week or up to 3 months before serving.
Variations
Besides the flavor pairings below, experiment with different vinegars—sherry or red- or white-wine vinegar will all work.
Cherry Tomatoes: 4 cups very small cherry or grape tomatoes, plus 2 small sprigs rosemary
Chile Cauliflower: 4 cups small cauliflower florets (halve or quarter larger ones), 2 small fresh red chiles, and 4 sprigs thyme
Dilly Beets: 12 ounces baby beets, peeled and cut into ½-inch wedges, plus 8 sprigs dill and 4 cloves garlic; add beets to brine with spices in step 1
Dill Cucumbers: 1 pound Kirby cucumbers, trimmed and cut into wedges, plus 8 sprigs dill and 4 cloves garlic
Onions and Peppers: 2 small red onions, 8 baby bell peppers, and 1 small jalapeño, all cut into rings
Radishes: 4 cups very small radishes, trimmed and larger ones halved
Make jam
Turn out jars of freezer jam throughout the summer so you can enjoy pick-of-season flavor long after fruit disappears from farmstands—and all without standing over a steaming pot on the stove.
Basic Formula
This streamlined formula works well for ripe summer fruit—plums, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.
1. Stir together 3 pounds berries or stone fruit (cut into 1-inch chunks), 1½ pounds sugar (3⅓ cups), and ¼ teaspoon salt in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved and mashing fruit with a potato masher (or a large spoon).
2. Add 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice; continue to boil, stirring frequently, until bubbles slow, chunks of fruit show at top, and mixture clings to a spoon (it will still fall off in clumps), 10 to 12 minutes. Skim foam from top.
3. Ladle jam into clean jars or containers, leaving ¾ inch of headroom. Let cool completely. Cover and refrigerate up to 1 month or freeze up to 1 year.
Variations
The skins from stone fruit lend pretty color and more flavor to the jam; for a smoother texture, peel peaches or nectarines: Carve an X in the bottom of each and plunge them into boiling water for 30 seconds, then transfer fruit to an ice-water bath; the skins will slip off. For plums, just lift the skins out of the cooked jam with a fork.
Mixed Berry: 1 pound raspberries, blackberries or blueberries, and strawberries
Nectarine-Raspberry: 2¼ pounds nectarines plus 12 ounces raspberries
Peach-Plum: 1½ pounds each peaches and plums
Every summer I make jam from fresh apricots. When simmering the fruit, I include five or six of the pits to add depth of flavor, then remove them before ladling the jam into jars.