The Craftiest Workshop

My husband Chris could have been a rabbit in another life. That is how much he enjoys raw carrots. If you look at him in late August/early September you actually may think he is jaundiced but it is just that he has consumed so much beta-carotene that his skin looks yellow. So far, I have never planted enough carrots to make them last past Thanksgiving. In one way this is good as the carrots sold in stores at Thanksgiving are still fairly tasty with a brighter orange tinge and you can get thinner carrots in the bags.
Every year after Christmas though, I go to the grocery store and look sadly at the bags of carrots. Not only do they look a duller shade of orange but they usually are huge. I still feel inclined to buy the largest bag available, knowing how much Chris likes carrots. Unfortunately, if they taste old, he doesn’t eat them like he did before Christmas. I have had to come up with ways to use up the carrots.

I have tried freezing sliced carrots but they seem to end up rubbery when cooked or some turn black in the freezer. Shredding the carrots and freezing them in 1 or 2 cup amounts works well for cakes or muffins but how many batches of carrot flavoured baked goods can one make? I have baked carrots coated in olive oil in the oven, pan fried carrots with garlic butter and honey and even served them mashed. I have made carrot soup and added carrots to stews. Nothing, so far, beats raw carrots for Chris…until now.

My brother in-law’s mother in-law (that is a mouthful) brings pickled carrots when we get together with them at Christmas and Thanksgiving. A couple weeks ago, as the carrots in our fridge were “starting to go”, Chris said to me, “why not try to pickle some carrots like Leeanna’s mom does?”

I have tried to make dill pickles but just once. I found that my cucumbers never did well in the gardens I had in Ontario but I was successful with them when we lived in St. Albert. I am not sure what I did wrong that year trying to make pickles but they didn’t taste anywhere near as good as store bought pickles. As a result of that failed attempt, I have never tried pickling anything again until now with pickling these carrots.

I looked for some different recipes online and opted for one that added brown sugar. I don’t mind garlic baby dills but they always seem a bit sour for me. I thought that the added sugar would tone that down a bit and I was right.

Garlic and Dill Pickled Carrots

This recipe makes 4-5 500 ml jars of pickled carrots.

Pickle ingredients (per jar)

1-2 cloves of minced garlic

1-2 dill weed heads

speared carrots (length jar height minus 1 inch)

Brine ingredients

4 cups of water

1 cup of vinegar

2 Tbsp brown sugar

2 Tbsp pickling salt

Instructions

Cut up the carrots into 1/2 inch thick spears cutting them about an inch shorter than the top of the jar. Mince/chop the garlic cloves and separate out the dill weed. If you use a hot water canner or put them in the oven to seal, you could fill the jars ahead of time.

I heat my jars with boiling water just before adding the brine so I wait until the last second to dump the boiling water and add the carrots, garlic and dill. I just have the ingredients separated out and ready to jar. Both ways work.

Bring the brine ingredients just to a boil.

Pour the brine over the carrots/dill/garlic in the hot jars. Place the hot lids and rings on the jars and hand tighten.
Let cool on the counter then store in a cool dark place. We waited three weeks to open a jar and the flavour was wonderful.

I was able to find dill at Co-op and found that one packet was enough. I had bought two so I just froze the rest.

I did these jars up a variety of ways. Adding the garlic and dill first in some and then adding it last in others. I cut up the garlic in a couple jars and left the cloves whole in a couple others. I had cut my spears too long for one jar so I cut off pieces and tossed them in the jar. The jar we opened was the one with cut up garlic that had been put in first with the dill. We are both pleasantly surprised how much we like them.

Note: The whole garlic cloves turn a blueish green colour as they react with the vinegar. Apparently this is normal and it isn’t mold forming. They were more blue about two weeks in but now the colour has faded a bit.

I should mention that I needed 1.5-2 med-large carrots per jar. I had not cut up enough initially so I had to bring the remainder of the brine to a boil again. Better to cut up too many than not have cut up enough. If the carrots spears are cut too long, they end up floating up above the brine in the jar so that is why I said to cut them an inch shorter than the jar top.

I cut up some raw veggies the other night for Chris as I was having cooked wax beans and they are not his favourite. I grabbed a couple pickled carrots from the fridge for myself. He tossed me one of his raw carrots to eat right after I ate a pickled carrot. It was so hard and bland in comparison. I think this bag of carrots will also need to be pickled.

I would like to try pickling carrots with thyme or rosemary. Next summer, at the height of wax beans, I will pickle some and see if maybe I can get Chris to eat them that way. We discussed maybe trying to make pickled mushrooms but I drew the line when he mentioned pickled eggs. Just glad to have gotten over my hesitation to try pickling again.