Long weekends are the best. I'll take a long weekend over just about any perk that an employer has to offer.*I love the feeling that I get when I crack an eyelid open just after dawn and realize that even though I've already had two days off, the weekend is not over yet. After a little rush of giddiness, I snuggle down under the covers and snooze for another few hours, dreaming some not-quite-asleep-not-quite-awake dreams as the light gets warmer and brighter on the wall over the foot of our bed.
After all of the cookery that went on last week, I am not in the mood to mess around in the kitchen. I'm going to order sushi take-out tonight and enjoy the last dregs of my long weekend in front of the television with my husband.Good thing that I have some homemade miso-mustard pickles in the fridge to tide me over until dinner. Hope you guys like pickles.
Miso-Mustard Pickles
Adapted from this Tia Keenan recipe in Food and Wine Magazine
These pickles are salty and savory, not sweet. I despise sweet pickles. You won't find a recipe for sweet pickles on this blog, ever.
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon miso paste (Tia's recipe calls for white miso paste; I used dark)
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish, drained
1 tablespoon whole peppercorns (I used a pretty mix of black, white, and pink peppercorns)
2 bay leaves
1 cucumber, sliced into 10-12 spears (you may want to consider using an English cucumber, which is unwaxed. English cucumbers are the ones wrapped in plastic sleeves)
In a large saucepan, combine the red wine vinegar, water, rice vinegar, sugar, mustard, miso, horseradish, peppercorns and bay leaves and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove the saucepan from the heat and let it cool to room temperature.
Pack the cucumber spears a quart jar. Pour the pickling liquid over to cover the cucumbers. Close the jar and refrigerate the pickles for 2 days before serving.
Makes 10-12 pickle spears
*cash bonuses not included.
The title of this post was borrowed from Joshua Ferris' 2007 bestselling novel of the same name.
