I am not much of a gardener, I have dabbled over the past couple of years with various pots and hanging baskets but never really had a full on garden. Last year was my first attempt and for the most part it produced some nice zucchini and enough cucumbers to make some pickles. This year I went full scale and added four 4feet x 4feet boxes and one 6feet x 4feet box in addition to the 10 x 4 raised bed that was already there. I planted from seed this year and am quite surprised that everything came in. My zucchini and cucumbers are growing great and will be producing zucchini in the next week or two. I planted 3 different types of beans and enough sugar snap peas to feed the neighborhood. Two different kinds of beets and Paris market carrots and of course radishes.
Only recently have I started enjoying radishes, I was out to dinner at the Bachelor Farmer, as part of our dinner they brought out a tray of radishes with butter and salt and some house made crackers. I was amazed at how good they were and how simply they were presented. When I started planning my garden I new that radishes were going to be a part of it. My sister had given me all of the seeds for my garden, for my Birthday. In the collection of seeds were two types of radish, purple radishes and breakfast radishes. I planted them in the middle of may and last week they were ready to be picked. What I hadn't planned on was an abundance of Radishes all at once. Nobody really needs 8 pounds of radishes all at the same time. So now I had to figure out what to do with all those radishes.
At first I thought about freezing them but it doesn't look like freezing radishes is a common practice so I figure maybe the Internet would yield some recipes for radishes. I came across two recipes that interested me, a pickled radish and a radish relish. Outside of being hard to say,
radish relish was pretty simple to make and is absolutely delicious. I think it needs to age a little but the first jar was pretty damn good. I used up most of my breakfast radishes for the relish and have some left over for snacking.
My purple radishes are really peppery bordering on hot and the honey pickled radish recipe looked like a perfect idea. I had made the pickled radishes last week and opened the first jar this week. The honey really balances out the radishes but I think like most pickles they are going to need to age for a few months to reach their perfect flavor.
Honey Pickled Radish
2 pounds radishes, tops and roots removed
2 1/2 cups water
2 T. kosher salt
1 1/2 cup water1 1/4 apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup honey
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 T. mixed peppercorns
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
Mix together the salt and 2 1/2 cups of water and stir to dissolve, then cut the radishes into quarters. add the radishes to the salt water and let sit for about 2 hours.
Drain and rinse the radishes, then mix the remaining ingredients in a pot and heat until boiling. Let the mixture sit for 10-15 minutes.
Pack radishes into hot, sterilized half pint jars. Pour hot vinegar mixture into jars, being sure to get some peppercorns into each jar and leaving 1/4 inch headspace in each jar. Process filled jars in a boiling water canner for 10 mintues. Makes 6 half pints.
