The Amazing Sandwich & Homemade Pickles

I didn’t cook last night. I was running behind on a personal project (I’m participating in NaNoWriMo this year, for real) and was feeling the pressure, so I opted to let my creative juices flow into my keyboard instead of into my pots and pans. Plus, I was feeling really damn lazy. Today, I could post about a few restaurants (mediocre ones) that I’ve let slip by, but instead, I took pictures of my lunch, which, happily included a pickled cabbage that I haven’t yet posted the recipe to, so… here it is.

I try to be relatively healthy for lunch, since, as you all know, my dinners tend to focus on flavor, taste, wonderful experiments that are leading me to gain ever more weight. So I stock whole grain bread (Arnold’s Twelve Grain, if you must know), and honey turkey, with the idea that I’ll make myself a boring but low calorie lunch of bread & turkey.

Yeah, right.

So today, I slapped together my sandwich, using homemade guacamole (don’t fret, I made another batch a few days ago!) as the spread, then layered on two slices of turkey, a nice slice of tomato, and my last minute addition: cucumber slices! (You can just barely see them on the left sandwich half, bottom!) The funny thing is, I only added the cucumber slices because I’ve been thinking for weeks now how nice a cucumber sandwich would be, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet, and the cucumbers here totally made the sandwich. Otherwise, it was just a very mushy (tasty mush, but mushy nonetheless) overall sandwich- the cucumbers brought it to another level (I’m extremely anti-lettuce- I don’t like it in my sandwiches, ever). The crunch was just the right contrast against the guacamole, bringing this sandwich from yum! to mmMMmm…

As for the pickled cabbage, a few weeks ago I had a big head of Napa cabbage about to go bad, so I decided to try my hand at pickling, something my brother-in-law does frequently and B loves, as do I. Of course, B much prefers the cucumbers, while I vastly prefer the cabbage.

So basically, the brine solution I used was: Heinz white vinegar, white sugar, in equal parts (I later added more sugar because it was just a teensy bit too sour this way, and I like sour things), thinly sliced onion and some dried dill, a seasoning I always keep on hand. That’s easy enough, right? I sliced up the cabbage and popped it in, let it sit for a couple days and voila!

The cucumbers require a little more prep- I peeled and chopped these, but left the seeds in (though you’re more than welcome to take them out, I’m just lazy). Then, I placed them all in a colander in the sink and sprinkled salt liberally all over the cucumbers, tossing them around to make sure they all got salt on them. I let them sit for a few hours, then I pressed them down to make even more water come out… Some people suggest putting a heavy pot on top to really press out the water, but I found my method just as effective (and you can snack on them, they taste great while they’re sweating it up!).

After a sufficient amount of water has been taken out, just toss them into the brine solution and wait a few days (I wouldn’t wait less than 24, but if you’re impatient, well, weak pickles, that’s all). That’s it, so simple!

Enjoy & happy eating!!!!