For my one accomplishment over the weekend, I canned the results of the two-week mixed veggie dill crock. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure I have the fermented pickles thing down. I've followed the given easy-as-pie* directions, but the end product tends to be very garlicky and salty. While a good number of garde-manger techniques** have come pretty naturally, I'm still not happy with the pickles I'm turning out. Slavishly adhering to recipes isn't doing it either, so I may start picking the brains of people I know have this stuff down. You're on notice.
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*I have a strange record with easy-as-pie directions. For instance, I can cite my very mixed results with the 30-min mozzarella recipe that seems to work consistently for everyone except me. I think I may crave complexity. Also? When all is said and done, pie is not that easy to do well. It is delicious, though.
**And then there's aspic, but that's a whole other story. I mean, I'm happy enough making stock rich enough to turn into flavor jelly when it cools, but I'm really unsure about packing meat and veggies in it and serving jiggly slices of the results. Even for me, that's a really hard sell.
