a pretty pickle

sliced thin, salted and about to be iced

At long last, I brave the true Bread and Butter Pickles (with onions!) from scratch, no cheater packet of spices.  Before breakfast, I sliced all 4lbs of them, with 2 lbs of red onions, and hit 'em up with salt and ice.  And there they sat, shedding excess water so they could make me up a crunchy little pickle.

rinsed and drained

add pickles to stuff I already boiled

It was a sticky but satisfying experience and I am the happy holder of 5 pints and 2 half pints of pickles.  And I still forgot to do the "let the air out" trick...one of these days, I'll remember that. At least these pickles are not floating!

Traditional Bread and Butter Pickles
The Ball Complete Book of Home Preservation

The branzini fish from the other night cooked up fabulously on the grill with some red onions and sliced lemon inside, salt and pepper and olive oil on the outside.  Nothing like the afternoon high Colorado winds to act as bellows for your charcoal grill.  The kids were not as impressed but that was ok as the fish itself did not yield as much filet as I'd have initially thought after my trout experiences.  The taste was somewhere between trout and mackerel, both of which are pictured below, losing their skin in my little Aussie grill.  All in all, I'd have it again.  The fact that the internet touts it as a "green fish" is just a bonus.  Thankfully, my fishmonger scales them all for me.