Pickling and canning? Of course you can!

You can conquer canning. Here are 12 recipes for sweet jams, savory chutneys, and crunchy pickles a plenty that will leave your mouth watering and your can-do attitude soaring.

Pickled radishes

The Rowdy Chowgirl
Pickled radishes are crunchy and mildly tangy – the peppery bite of the radishes is mellowed by the brine into a bright, vaguely sweet flavor.

1-2 bunches of radishes, depending on size (about 3 cups)
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons whole peppercorns
2 cloves garlic

1. Cut greens and tails from radishes. Wash gently, and cut in half lengthwise (quarter larger ones).

2. Place radishes in a glass bowl or canning jars with peppercorns.

3. Stir salt and sugar into vinegar until dissolved, and pour over radishes, ensuring that all are submerged.

4. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Radishes will be ready to eat at this point, but will keep for around a week in the refrigerator. Eat them while they are still crunchy.

10 of 12

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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