Repurposed Pickles

That sounds gross, doesn't it? It's not--promise.

See, last summer, the Summer of the Pickle, I tried a recipe for freezer pickles from my Serving Up the Harvest cookbook. The recipe calls for just submerging cucumber and onion slices in a bread-and-butter pickle brine and freezing it. It was such a weird idea that I had to try it. I used less sugar than the recipe called for, because it seemed awfully sweet, stuck a quart of it in the chest freezer, and promptly forgot about it. Because that's what happens to things I stick in our big chest freezer.

Everything eventually resurfaces, however, and I dug out the experimental freezer pickles a couple of months ago. After a few minutes of puzzled contemplation, I remembered what was in that particular container (of COURSE I didn't label it--that would be too intelligent) and left it out to thaw with some curiosity about the result of freezing cucumbers.

The verdict? Eh. Not great. Not terrible. The texture was, predictably, kind of limp. The taste was pretty good, though, and it occurred to me that it tasted a lot like hot dog relish. Which I don't generally eat. But I left the container of pickles in the refrigerator anyway, mostly because I couldn't just throw them out, but also with some vague idea of using them for relish when hot dog season arrived. I figured A. would probably eat the relish at least.

Well.

Hot dog season has arrived and the pickles are already almost gone. Turns out, I like my own relish on hot dogs quite a bit. Mostly because it covers up the hot dog, which is not really my favorite food. So I just pull out the pickles, chop 'em up fine, and dump a bunch on the hot dog. It tastes good, adds some vegetables to what is essentially a nutrient-free meal, and allows me to call freezer pickles a successful experiment.

Wins all around.