Pickles Accomplished

Armed with recipes copied from my grandma's big black book, on loan from my cousin Barbara (who has used her superior baking skills to parlay Grandma's apple cake recipe into a grand champion ribbon at the Monroe County Fair in Indiana), I set out to cook this weekend. Okay, "cook" is maybe overstating it. But, I made brownies (from a box, natch), spaghetti sauce, finger-lickin' barbecued chicken (cannot take credit for the stellar name, must credit the Jefferson County newspaper headline of 1976), spinach salad with warm bacon dressing, and ... refrigerator pickles. I ran into a bunch of my PEO friends at the farmer's market, and resisted temptation at the cute initial-jewelry stand to buy cucumbers instead. The little ones that look like pickles, in fact. The result? Cool, summery pickled cukes that keep for up to a year in the 'fridge.

Refrigerator Pickles
7 cups cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced onions
1 tablespoon salt
Let the above stand overnight.
Drain well.
Mix
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seed
Mix until sugar is dissolved. Pour mixture over cucumbers. Mix well and put in jars. They will keep for one year in the refrigerator.

Next up: Pineapple cake. It involves Duncan Hines yellow cake, vanilla pudding and Cool Whip. What can possibly go wrong?*

See entry #1.