Pioneer Day Pickles

Happy Pioneer Day to all our Pioneers in Utah. In honor of the Pioneers who trekked across the country to settle in the Salt Lake Valley - Zion - on July 24, 1847, I'm going to do some "preserving." The Pioneers were an industrious folk who bottled/canned/preserved lots of food items. I'm not going to be complicated or require that you have any special canning/bottling supplies, but instead offer up a simple recipe from our dear friend Bunny. Essentially, you buy dill pickles at the store - rinse off the dill pickling juice, and re-pickle them using Bunny's secret sweet pickling concoction. Let's get to it:

Bunny's Low Carb Sweet Dill Pickles

24 oz bottle tiny or baby whole dill pickles (not the garlic type)

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup cider vinegar

1/2 tablespoon (1 1/2 teaspoons) pickling spices

1/2 tablespoon (1 1/2 teaspoons) kosher salt

10 tablespoons single-sugar-equivalent sweetener -

now this is where it gets a bit dicey. The single equivalent meant that if you are using the Splenda that is "measures just like Sugar" then you use 1 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons of that sweetner. If you use single serving packets of Splenda, then you want to use the equivalent of 10 Tablespoons of Splenda, and that equates to 15 packs of the single serve (steal them from Starbucks) packets of Splenda. Bunny explains that the "measures as sugar" is puffed up with extra additives for measurement purposes - while the single serve Splenda is the "equivalent" of 2 teaspoons of sugar. Are you with me? Bunny recommends Splenda, and says: "DO NOT USE Equal because Equal loses its sweetness when heated."

Dump pickles into a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold water. Repack pickles in jar.

(If you feel that your baby dills are a bit on the "large" side, you will want to chop them in half before repacking into the jar - this is a secondary pickling process and in order for it to properly re-pickle, you want a larger surface area to absorp the yummy goodness of the sweet pickling conconction.) Combine remainig ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a full boil.

Carefully pour hot liquid over pickles in the jar. Allow to cool, then replace lid. Shake jar to distribute pickling spices, then place in refridgerator. Refrigerate at least one day for flavors to develop and to "re-pickle."