The acetic acid in pickles is hypoglycemic (lowers blood sugar), but with these added spices, they are very, very hypoglycemic, and eating one with a meal will ensure your blood sugar does not spike afterwards. Additionally, the spices are anti-inflammatory antioxidants. As for the taste, well, you’ve never tasted a pickle this good. I call them:

A Taste of India

Ingredients (as organic as possible) 

• 2 Tablespoons Celtic Sea Salt
• 2 cloves (or fingers) of Garlic
• 2 Tablespoons Dry Dill Seed (although I prefer fresh dill, and I don’t measure)
• 1/2 Cup Un-pasteurized Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Fenugreek seed, powdered
• 1 Tablespoon Turmeric
• 1 teaspoon Cumin
• 1 teaspoon Black Pepper

Optional 

• ¼ Cup Fenugreekl Leaves, crushed. (Recently added to this recipe 7/2019)
• 1 teaspoon Coriander (seed powder)
• Some hot peppers or a few drops of your favorite hot sauce.

Directions (for ONE QUART)

Wash the cucumbers. Chop up the garlic if you like or leave them whole. In QUART Wide mouth jars (pulled from boiling water), first add the vinegar, and then the dried ingredients and then shake or stir to make sure the dried ingredients are well blended into the vinegar.

Then pack cucumbers (cut in any shape or leave whole; poking them with a fork is sometimes helpful), then fill to the top with filtered water.

Screw on canning lids careful not to let dill get between jar and lid.

Global Climate Change

We’ve got to bring this up. Because the summers are getting hotter, these pickles are getting done earlier and if you leave them out too long, they get soggy and the tops expand, the bottles leak, and I’ve even had a few explode. 

First off, I recommend one piece lids. I bought these: Mason Jar Lids at Amazon. These are not the lid pictured below. That batch was the one that had a few exploding jars. 

I had been putting them in the sun for four days. Now three is enough. Especially if they are hot days. If you have a day with no sun, then wait one more day. But three is enough! 

I shake them daily to get all the spices circulating.

There is, however, one option to the sun:

Oven Pickles

Heat the over to 250 and place the pickles right side up on the oven racks for one hour. After an hour, turn the oven off and let them sit until they are cool enough to touch. Set them out for ONE month and then enjoy.

We get our Celtic Sea Salt from the only non-profit store on the web: Simply the Best.

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A Little Story

We sell our Taste of India pickles for donations to our charity at out local Farmers Market. Because we’re an educational charity, we often talk about the ingredients and their benefits. And talking often bores people. 

Not at my table!

When we get a couple at our table, I’ll often talk up the benefits of the Fenugreek, first addressing the woman, talking about how it lessens the effect of PMS and menopause, and how if lactating, it helps a woman produce more milk. Then I’ll address the man pointing out how fenugreek has been shown to increase muscle strength, reduce fat, and increase testosterone levels. Then I’ll pull out of my gallon jar of pickles, a foot long, pound and a half pickle and say, “Just look what it’s done for this guy!”