Peaches and Cream Ice Cream

Peaches and Cream Ice Cream

A couple of days ago, I realized I had three small doughnut peaches left over from my last CSA box.  Miraculously they were not super mushy or moldy.  I knew that they didn’t have many days left of being viable, so I thought I’d do something creative with them.

My favorite ice creams are made with cream, milk, sugar, and flavoring – no eggs involved.  I thought I’d try to add these peaches to a basic sweet cream base.  Almonds go nicely with peaches, too, so I thought perhaps I’d add a little almond extract.

The result was a subtle, lightly flavored ice cream that tastes like a bowl of peaches and whipped cream.  It’s far less peach-y than normal peach-flavored ice cream, and doesn’t have a bright orange color, but it’s refreshing and cool and quite tasty!  The only thing I’d consider changing next time would be to cook the peaches slightly before adding them to the ice cream base – I think it would help bring out the ripe peach flavor.  If you didn’t cook them, though, you’d still have a beautiful ice cream to enjoy!

Elisa’s Peaches and Cream Ice Cream

• 2 cups cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/3-2/3 cup peaches, cut into very small pieces, with juice (raw or slightly cooked)

Mix together all ingredients in the canister of an ice cream maker.  Churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions (mine takes about 35-40 minutes) before moving to an airtight container in the freezer.  This ice cream will stay softer than, say, the avocado one I made a few months ago, so it’s perfect for scooping.

A Big Gardening Week

Wow…  What an awesome week for my garden!

First, the food…

Saturday we had dinner with my parents, sister, and grandmother.  I brought over a ton of produce – artichokes, squash, squash flowers, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet peppers, as well as rosemary we used in cooking chicken – and we had a feast.  We boiled the artichokes with garlic, onion, and herbs, grilled the squash alongside chicken and polenta squares (my sister’s express request for her pre-birthday dinner), had a big salad, and made the year’s first batch of fried squash flowers.  A few years ago, the last time I actually had a garden, we made a batch or two of them, but since we haven’t had readily-available blossoms since ’07, these were a really exciting and fun treat.  Obviously not something you’d make daily (because, um, they’re fried) but totally worth the messy stove.

Thursday night we had ratatouille, with our first creamy eggplant (everything but the onion and garlic were garden-harvested).

Yesterday I made tomato sauce with five big Black Krum tomatoes, and dinner last night was carnitas burritos with veggies, with a filling made from our first tomatillo harvest and some of our peppers.  I also made another set of pickles, since I’ve taken a dozen cucumbers out of the garden in the last week! 

Now on to the garden itself…

The Black Krum and Isis tomatoes have produced their first ripe fruits.  There are ripening fruits on the Kellogg’s Breakfast and Camp Joy plants too, and Sungold has produced about 7 pounds of beautifully ripe cherry-sized tomatoes over the last month and a half!

The bean vines are going nuts – I’ve harvested about three pounds of big beautiful green beans!  Likewise, most of the pepper plants are full of fruit.  And the cucumber plants together have produced something like 15 pounds of cucumbers.  Likewise, the artichoke plant is producing consistently – we’ve gotten a dozen chokes from the two plants that have flowered, and, with tons of little ones sprouting on the sides now, plan to eat these for a while.  Interestingly we seem to have a far smaller problem with pincher bugs this year in our chokes – I wonder whether it has anything to do with the physical barrier (the weed cloth) we put down.

The first butternut squash didn’t actually set – but over the last two weeks we’ve seen more female flowers on that plant than I’ve ever seen before.  Luckily, since it wasn’t producing any male flowers to pollenate them, I was able to use the summer squash plants in the backyard to pollenate.  I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did – and we’ve got nine baby butternuts on the plant right now!  You can see that both pumpkin plants in the bed next to the butternut squash seem to be doing well – there’s actually a baby fruit on the smallest (middle) plant.  The tall plant across from the squash appears to be a bush variety (it’s called Magic Lantern but I don’t recall seeing anything about it being a bush rather than a vine) of pumpkin.

Baby butternut!

You can see my "bush" pumpkin here... This photo is actually a couple of days old, though, because the butternut squash has encroached on the pumpkins' space already!

Last week I got curious about the watermelons in the front yard and brought out my antique kitchen scale.  I tried to be as careful as possible, and gravity was working against me (the watermelon kept trying to roll downhill!) but I weighed the largest melon at about 13 pounds.  I haven’t seen any signs of it being ripe yet – I’m hoping I don’t miss them!

My biggest watermelon! ~13 pounds!

The Jack Be Little pumpkin is already getting really big.  I caged it this week (right after I took this photo) in hopes that when it sends out tendrils it’ll climb up the cage rather than out all over my patio.  Considering that it only ever sprouted over 4th of July weekend, I’m impressed with the size of this little guy.  Can’t wait for my mini pumpkins!

Jack Be Little pumpkins! Took me three tries to get this to grow from seed but now they're happy as clams!

The potted Sugar Baby watermelon (grown from a seed, just like my Jack Be Little) has set its first fruit.  I made a little “sling” out of a piece of panty hose to keep it supported (hush now, it’s not meant to look pretty!).  Hopefully this will help it to stay on the plant long enough to ripen!

My homemade watermelon sling!

My sunflowers are getting tall – currently they’re about waist-high on me.  They’re supposed to be an heirloom variety with several different blooms of various sizes and shades.  Can’t wait to see what colors the blossoms are!  I’m hoping I can figure out how to properly harvest the seeds from these guys without bugs laying their eggs inside.  Last time I grew sunflowers (big giant yellow ones, taller than the house), I let the heads dry on the stem, and when we tried to harvest the seeds they were overrun by larvae.  Ick!

Sunflowers are waist-high!

Two weeks ago the heat was so crazy that my lettuce all bolted.  This week I pulled it up and planted some new things – asparagus peas (which I’ve never tried, but the teeny red flowers were so pretty I had to get them), more beets (I harvested my last two earlier this week) and two mystery plants that were on a table of mixed vegetables at the nursery with no tags and no like plants.  I think one is celeriac and the other is kale.  Of course since they just went in the ground it’ll be a little bit before I can truly see.  (sorry, no photos yet of my mystery plants or asparagus peas!)

My harvest for yesterday was so colorful and gorgeous!

Harvest! Several Black Krum tomatoes, plus some Isis tomatoes and more Sungolds, an artichoke, two small creamy eggplants, some cucumbers and peppers, our first tomatillos, and an okra!

I’ve also harvested squash and beans this week, along with another eggplant and several more tomatoes.  We’re really getting into the summer season here and my garden is thriving!

Swiss Chard Summer Squash Tart

Last week was incredibly hot.  So hot it was unbearable.  On the hottest day of the year to date, we still hadn’t set up our portable air conditioner.  So by around 5 pm it was cooler outside than in and we retreated to the backyard (hooray for having such a beautiful place to go!).   But even so, it was so hot I couldn’t even consider making dinner until the sun was low in the sky.  Luckily, being in the garden meant that we had plenty of time to consider our options, and look around for ingredients.

I’ve written this recipe as I will make it next time – because I was just sort of tossing in whatever leftover bits and pieces we had, to round out the flavors – so yours will look a little different than the photo (I made it with more ground turkey than I’ve written).  But I have to tell you – everything goes so incredibly well together that it won’t matter if you don’t measure.  Just make it.

Swiss Chard Summer Squash Tart

• 1 tart shell (I made a quick whole wheat one with relatively little fat in it and it was okay, but I don’t have a ton of luck making pastry, so I don’t have a great recipe for you…  if I ever find pastry nirvana I’ll share)
• 1/2 to 1 small onion, diced
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2-3 sprigs fresh thyme (obviously you could use dry thyme, but since it’s quite strong you’ll want to use just a pinch)
• 1/3 lb ground turkey (optional, but we wanted to include some protein in the meal and it actually tastes good together)
• 4-8 large leaves swiss chard, stems separated from leaves, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 oz cream cheese or other soft cheese
• 1/2 large summer squash (we grow big white patty pan squash that weigh about a pound each, but you can use zucchini or crookneck or whatever you like), cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/3-1/2 cup sharp cheese (we used parmesan, but you could use a sharp gouda or gruyere; the more flavor in the cheese, the less you’ll probably need to use)
• black pepper, to taste

Bake unfilled tart shell for 10 minutes at 350 degrees and remove from oven.  In a large sautee pan, cook onion over medium heat in a little olive oil until softened.  Add garlic and thyme and cook for another 1-2 minutes or until garlic is soft.  Add ground turkey and cook for 2-3 minutes before adding swiss chard stems to the pan.  Cook turkey through and remove pan from heat.  Add squash, swiss chard leaves, cream cheese, sharp cheese, and pepper and mix well.  Spread filling in the tart shell and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  The top will be lightly browned.  Remove from the oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes to set before cutting and serving.

Swiss Chard Tart (forgive the awful lighting - my kitchen light went out and we haven't replaced it with a powerful enough bulb yet)

Holy Links, Batman!

I’ve been linked!  I can’t help it…  I’m so excited!!!!

I’m Such a Nerd…

I just had to share that my blog has been getting a ton of extra hits over the last week.  Apparently people are finding my Refrigerator Dill Pickle recipe, and I’m totally excited.  I mean, aside from the fact that they’re really easy, they’re very crispy and oh so good.  I shared them at the baby shower I attended this past weekend (at my friends’ request!) and they got rave reviews.  I also brought them up to my friend’s birthday celebration later that day and three self-professed pickle lovers were in heaven (people who don’t really like pickles all that much – like me – actually have really enjoyed these too – I think it’s because they’re not nearly as salty or vinegary or soft as commercial varieties).

Anyway, I just had to share how excited I was!

Squash and Cucumbers and Tomatoes, Oh My!

I got back last night from two days away with friends.  Today I was feeling hung over (the sleep kind of hangover, not the drunk kind of hangover – we only slept about 2 1/2 hours the night before last, as we were making custom tee-shirts for our friend’s Disneyland birthday) and it was 80+ degrees at my house (no air conditioning, and yes I’m aware that on the East Coast it’s been far warmer for the last week, but here it’s been in the low 60s…  so it was a huge temperature jump and my body really didn’t like it).  So I didn’t really get off the couch until a half hour or so ago.

I knew my poor plants desperately needed to be watered (although my husband was home, the garden really is my baby… I think if I gave him specific instructions he’d have remembered, but watering was not something he’d have done on his own), but I was completely gobsmacked when I walked out the back door.

First, the not-so-good news.  The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce has pretty much all gone to seed.  I cut two stalks off that had fallen over onto my Swiss Chard and we’re having salad for dinner; I’m thinking I have another three or four days at most before I really have to yank them out. 

Sadly, mildew has attacked my tomatoes with a vengeance – I thought I’d been successful in cutting off all the diseased leaves, but I think last week’s bout of cold damp weather really hit them hard.  I sprayed them with a baking soda solution this evening and I’m hoping that they’ll continue to do okay.  And some little critter apparently has made my garden his home, digging a small hole through the weed cover and into the ground.  When I’m done with my watering, hubby plans to put the hose down there and see what comes out – I’m a little scared to do so, though, since it’s definitely a smaller hole than a gopher would make (so I’m thinking it may be reptilian).

Now for the good news.

This is tonight’s harvest:

Yes, that’s all from tonight – and I made sure before I left on Sunday that anything that was ripe was pulled.  So this has all ripened over the last two days.  Two large white scallop squash, two large green cucumbers, five small lemon cucumbers, a bunch of large green beans, at least a pound of very ripe Sungold tomatoes, the third ripe Tequila Sunrise pepper, and two very exciting additions: our first two ripe Cubanelle peppers and our first Black Krum (I realize it’s probably not 100% ripe, but I was too excited to wait to pull it – there’s another one that’s nearly ripe on the plant, and I’ll wait for a couple of days to pick it).

HUGE harvest.  So very exciting!

We also have our very first eggplant growing:

And our first butternut squash!

The watermelons are looking good, too – they’re getting gigantic…  I keep looking for signs that one of them has ripened, but so far no dice.

And it looks like we’ll have to call an Artichoke Party at my parents’ house this weekend (every year when there are a ton of artichokes and I don’t know what to do with them we have a sort of impromptu party with my parents and my sister and my grandmother, who all love them as much as we do – we make some sort of protein and maybe grill up some polenta and boil a ton of artichokes and eat them until we can’t eat any more).  Two big ones are on the plants, with a ton of smaller ones.  YUM.

We also have three purple bell peppers on the plant, and they’re getting bigger by the day.  Can’t wait to stuff them!

And the Jack Be Little pumpkin sent up its first true leaves!

The sunflowers are getting tall too!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to make my dinner…  Salad straight from the garden!

4th of July

I know it’s a little late, but our 4th of July celebration was a blast!  Lots of great food, two of our favorite people, and a perfect place to see fireworks.

Unfortunately I have to admit that I sort of forgot to take photos.

It’s weird taking pictures of things when there are just four of you there…  Maybe if I was with other friends who liked to blog about their yummy eats (um, Jennie, I’m looking at you!), it wouldn’t have been awkward…  But as it was, it was.  So I’ll just describe instead.

When Mike and Jess got here, we had fruit and cheese plates (otherwise known as the reason to always keep a box of nice crackers in the cupboard…  around 1 pm I realized I’d overlooked any food for munching with sangria and hastily threw them together from what we had in our fridge and cupboard, but you’d have never known, because between 4 kinds of yummy cheese, frozen grapes, and strawberries, peaches, oranges, and passion fruit, they looked beautiful!) and a strawberry sangria that they’d brought over (so yummy, and I have the recipe now!).

For dinner, we had hamburgers (I have the best burger recipe in the world and will share it with you next time I make them…  seriously, so juicy and tasty – and even Jess’ turkey burger tasted awesome using the same recipe) with carmelized onions, corn on the cob cooked on the grill, a big green salad, my pickles (they turned out so good that I’m getting requests to bring them places!), and chips.  That last one is another lesson – always have a backup plan – because I’d actually intended on having sweet potato fries.  Unfortunately hubby insisted on using his mandoline slicer, which is fantastic, but on the thickest setting the thing cut the fries so very very tiny that the outsides burned before the insides cooked.  We ended up with a bunch of raw hockey pucks.  Plan B!

After a vigorous game of Balderdash (Mike and Jess are our board game buddies – we’ve been having dinner and game nights every month or so since they moved down from LA), we left for a top secret fireworks viewing spot.  Hey, I know how it can get when people crowd in!  We found parking relatively easy there and I’d like to do so again next year!  We brought out picnic blankets and sipped on travel cups of coffee and ate cupcakes while we waited for the shows to start – we ended up seeing seven or eight different shows at various times, so it was a great place to watch!

The cupcakes were pretty good, especially considering that it wasn’t my intention to make vanilla cupcakes with strawberry cheesecake frosting.  In fact, I set out to do red, white, and blue ones again.  This time, I decided I’d make them with blueberries instead of blue-dyed cocoa.  We went to the Farmer’s Market and picked up some ripe strawberries and blueberries and I pureed them to add to the cake batter.

Now, here’s where it gets sketchy.  I don’t know whether it was the fact that I was using twice as many berries as last year or whether it had more to do with the cake recipe I was using (which was not the same one as last year’s).  But instead of being heavy, dense, and impossible to eat, this batch was light, gummy, and impossible to eat.  So much so that I didn’t even take a photograph before I dumped the whole thing in the trash (which was a shame, because they did have a nice bright color to them).

Luckily I’d made an error earlier on in the baking process.  I was planning to half a recipe I had, that makes 24 cupcakes, to make this year’s batch of three-colored cakes.  I halved the butter and the sugar and the flour and the salt… But when it came to the eggs, I just cracked them in – two whole eggs and two egg whites – and realized as they were mixing into the batter that a half recipe was just one whole egg and one egg white.  Oops.

So I hastily softened some more butter and measured out the rest of the ingredients.  Luckily, I did – because I ended up with 12 extra vanilla cupcakes when all was said and done.  And the strawberry cheesecake frosting was totally worth it (yes, I’ll put up a recipe, but it might not be till later in the month when I use the now-frozen leftover frosting for something).

I Love My Garden!

It’s time for another round of garden photos…  It’s crazy how much it’s grown just in the last couple of weeks!  Unfortunately these photos aren’t winning any awards, but you get the idea…

The tomato plants grew much, much faster than anticipated, and, despite being caged, were taking over and invading the walkway and each others’ space, so I bought some sturdy 5′ stakes and tied them up.  I’ve read that crowding the stems can contribute to disease, but as you can see there were already some spots on the stalks before I tied them up; this will at least allow me to access them better and the fruit won’t droop.  Also, I’ve had success in the past brewing a garlic “tea” to spray my plants with; it helps slow the growth of disease without the use of chemicals.  If you look really closely you might be able to catch a glimpse of some of the beanstalks behind the last tomato plant; I have to say I didn’t expect the growth the tomatoes experienced in such a short time frame, so the beans aren’t doing quite as well as I’d hoped.  Still, there are a few tiny beanlets on the vines, and several flowers.  I’ll just need to be super careful getting to them!

The tallest tomato branches are now taller than me... And FULL of fruit. CRAZY!

The pepper plants are all starting to mature peppers; you can see the pretty orange Tequila Sunrise in the background, along with the Purple Bell plant in the foreground.  Something I wasn’t aware of when I harvested my first bell pepper earlier in the month is that this particular strain of bell peppers evidently has fruit that turn purple and then mature; the first pepper I picked was green on the inside, and very very bitter.  Since then I’ve seen three small peppers turn a dark aubergine; they’ve all continued to get larger, so here’s hoping the next one I pick will be tasty!  You might also notice the lemon cucumber behind the Tequila Sunrise.  It’s getting HUGE and setting fruit like crazy.  The last time I grew lemon cucumbers (and Isis tomatoes, for that matter), the plant barely grew at all and only set a handful of fruit.  Now it’s bursting!

Peppers and cucumbers and tomatillos, oh my!

The squash bed is full of life, too.  The largest artichoke plant has a TON of small chokes on it, and I just saw my first choke on the second plant today.  The biggest squash plant has leaves more than a FOOT across!  We also just harvested the first patty pan squash – you might be able to just see it in the photo.  The malabar spinach is climbing its trellis and there are a ton of small flowers on it.  Truthfully I haven’t harvested any spinach; I think I’m just too interested in what it’s going to do next!

What you can't see are all the teeny tiny artichokes on the biggest plant!

The front of the house is coming along nicely; the big plant on the left is a butternut squash, grown from seed planted in May.  Unfortunately none of the pumpkin seeds I attempted to grow took root (although I did plant seeds – again – for Jack Be Little pumpkins in a big pot in the back yard last week, so we’ll see if those sprout), so I finally broke down and bought a Magic Lantern and a Casper.  That’s the white one in the middle.  I know that the vines will eventually intertwine and it’s a slightly small space for three winter squash, but I love the look of a big mess of vines (the watermelons look fantastic!).

The front yard; from left to right, butternut squash, Casper white pumpkin, and Magic Lantern pumpkin

And the watermelons?  Best idea we ever had.  Every night we hear people walking by commenting on how big they’re getting – and several of our neighbors have commented to us that they love looking at them!  The yard is green and pretty – the vines are taking up almost the whole side – and there are currently four little melons growing like crazy.  Literally every time we go outside it seems like one of the melons has grown an inch or more.  I am hopeful that the biggest one will be ripe in time for our July 4th dinner with friends, but since I’ve never had luck growing watermelon before I’m not really sure I’ll be able to tell!  The last watermelon I planted ended up with a single softball-sized fruit that rotted and split open instead of ripening, so I’ve already succeeded with these two!

Pretty melons!

Like I said, we’re having friends over this weekend, to eat in our garden.  And eat from the garden; we’ve got pickles from my first-ever batch this week, and we’ll have a salad, complete with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and chive flowers (YUMMY), even if nothing else is ready yet.  So exciting!

Today’s harvest: 5 lemon cucumbers (the two largest went to our former neighbors and friends, B & D), a beautiful white patty pan summer squash (these taste similar to zucchini but are actually a little milder, to my taste…  I’d never had one before I met my husband but his grandfather used to grow them and they’re a favorite in his family), two artichokes, and a couple of little orange Sungold tomatoes.  I’ve been hoarding these so that we have enough of them for Sunday’s dinner!

Harvest time!

Homemade Refrigerator Dill Pickles

Cucumbers turn into pickles!

I have a bumper crop of cucumber this year; every day for the last week or two I’ve been harvesting one or two or more.  We’re having guests for the 4th of July and I wanted to make something special to go with our hamburgers.  So, not really being much of a “canning” person, I started looking at refrigerator pickle recipes.

There seem to be as many pickle recipes as there are people who make pickles, and none of them quite worked for me.  I’ve never made pickles before, but I know I like a slightly spicy, not-too-salty, dill-and-garlicky mixture.  So I winged it.

Here’s my recipe (it makes one quart jar of pickles; you can get single quart-sized ball jars at Michael’s stores – trust me, I looked all over and unless you want to buy a package of 12 jars, this is the way to go):

Elisa’s Homemade Refrigerator Kosher-Style Dill Pickles

• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp white sugar
• pickling cucumbers (I used 3 standard pickling-size cukes and 2 lemon cukes; I know there are three in the photo, but that was before I cut them up and realized they wouldn’t all fit!), cut into wedges (I cut the two larger picklers into quarters and the smaller one in half, and cut the lemon cucumbers into quarters)
• 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
• 1/4 tsp allspice seeds
• 1/4 tsp mustard seeds
• 1/8 tsp celery seeds
• 2-4 medium cloves garlic, cut into long thin pieces
• 3 large sprigs of fresh dill (if you don’t have fresh dill, I’ve seen recipes that use dill seed and dry dill weed; I’m certain that those would work but obviously I haven’t experimented)

In a small non-reactive pan, bring water, vinegar, salt, and sugar to a boil.  Remove from heat and allow to cool (I’m impatient and ended up putting my brine into a container in the freezer for 10 minutes to cool!).  Place pepper, allspice, mustard, and celery seeds in the bottom of a clean quart-size ball jar (I can’t really figure out why but I’ve seen a couple of places say glass only; I wanted a “lightning jar” but couldn’t find a glass one…  if you know where to get them new let me know!).  Pack cucumbers in tightly (you may have to remove them and re-pack them a few times to get them right!).  Drop garlic pieces into the jar around and between cucumbers. 

Pack the cucumbers into the jar tightly with the spices and garlic

Carefully pour your brine over your cucumbers, being sure to cover them completely (you should have approx. 2 cups brine after boiling and cooling and you’ll probably have a little left over), and place dill sprigs on the top of the jar before sealing very well.  Turn and shake jar until seeds have distributed throughout the brine.  Place in refrigerator for at least 24 hours.

Pickles!

From what I’ve read, refrigerator pickles end up “cooking” for as long as you keep them around, so they’ll get stronger and softer as time goes on, but they should last approximately 2 months when kept refrigerated (remember, these aren’t shelf-stable, as they haven’t been sealed in a water bath!).  After finishing the brine and adding it to the jar over the cucumbers, my hands smelled delicious – like the perfect pickle!

…..

It’s been 24 hours since I made these, and I just had to try one.

Truthfully it was a little salty for me (I used a heaping tablespoon, which was actually less than in a lot of recipes, but next time I think I’d use a scant tablespoon instead), and I think it’ll benefit from a longer soak to get a bit more of the dill flavor.

BUT…  The pickles have a good flavor, garlicky and tangy, with just a hint of sweetness.  They crunch unlike any store-bought pickle you’ve ever tasted, and they’re much, much fresher.  You can really enjoy the cucumber flavor unencumbered by blue and yellow coloring.  It’s SO worth making a batch of these!

…..

OK…  So it’s a couple of hours later and we just had these with BBQ sandwiches.  The verdict?  Hubby (a pickle aficionado) says that they aren’t salty and likes their subtlety.  I had two and with food they’re really tasty.  Can’t wait to see how they are with the dinner we’re having with friends this weekend!

*** 

Okay guys I know everyone loves these and I’m so glad!  I just want to remind you that they are in fact refrigerator pickles.  I thought perhaps they could be canned but according to all canning sites I’m seeing you need a large amount of salt to make them shelf-stable.  So make these and enjoy them right from your fridge.  They should last up to 3 months in there.  But don’t try to “can” them in a water bath (unless you know you can prove my sources wrong, of course) and leave them on a shelf for months.  Also – if they fizz when you open them, they’ve gone bad.  This happened to a batch of mine that were left out for a few hours at a party and then re-refrigerated for a month.  Yeah, not the best way to do things.  Anyway, the batch I made for 4th of July is still excellent – it was left in the fridge this whole time and was kept nice and cold.  Happy Pickling! 😉