Sweet Homemade Pickles

Good pickles are hard to come by in Northeastern Brazil.  Sometimes we can find some little sour gherkins in one particular store in the big city, sometimes not.  Just finding good cucumbers to make pickles is trick. The best cucumbers are called Japanese cucumbers.  They are long and skinny without too many seeds.  

 Last week on a trip to town, my dear man found some great cucumbers at a little chic veggie store where I like to go in the big city.  So it was time to make more pickles.  Sadly I knew when my sweetie called to ask about the cucumbers that my pickling spices from the US of A were all gone.

I got online and looked for "make your own pickling spice" to see what sort of stuff really goes in those mixes.  I bought what I could and added a few things I thought sounded good.  Voila!  The pickles were approved by all and smell great.  Now, if I could just remember what I threw in that pot!

Here's what spices really went in:

whole cloves

broken cinnamon stick

salt

pepper

anise

bay leaves

Having little tastes of home {USA} is important even for macho MK boys who think they are 100% Brazilian but really aren't!