Pickled Okra

Once again, the farmer’s market provided.

I told my brother to be on the lookout for okra.  He is a farmer’s market devotee and hits some great ones in The Cities.  Okra doesn’t show up often here at our small town markets, but his neighborhood vegetable stand markets their produce more towards the African and Asian members of his community and big baskets of okra are plentiful at his corner farmer’s market.  The great prices and abundant produce (plus the cup of coffee and time together we shared) made the drive worth the trip.

For fourteen dollars I got ten pounds of okra, two bouquets of dill, and a beautiful bunch of garlic.  I added some cider vinegar, pickling salt, distilled water, and hot peppers from the garden and POOF… I had sixteen jars of pickled okra, our family’s favorite pickles.

I used Linda Ziedrich's recipe from The Joy of Pickling: 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden or Market (Revised Edition).  The key to pickling okra is getting all the pods into the jars.  I packed the pods pointy side up first, then pointy side down to fill the jars most effectively.  

Pods too long to work their ways into my pint jars were served for dinner, stewed with garden tomatoes and leftover farmer’s market garlic.  It was one of my mom’s favorite dishes.  She cooked it fast and it was never slimy.