Eat Clean! Read Food Labels - Note that most Pickle Relish contains Corn Syrup. Here's a #GardenCuizine #healthytip

Better Pickle Relish

Healthy Food Prep Tip

For holiday weekends and summer BBQs offer homemade potato salad, cauliflower salad or a favorite salad. If your recipe calls for pickle relish - use the best quality relish you can find next to making your own.

Always read the food label. Avoid products with added corn syrup. It's common for store bought pickle relish to have added corn syrup (artificial colors and preservatives too). For better quality pickle relish, select a jar of pickles with the least amount of ingredients and chop them yourself. Kosher dill gherkins are pretty clean and make delicious relish.
Blog post and photo Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

Passion for Pickles Video

Passion for Pickles 

If you think pickles are just cucumbers or beets soaked in vinegar, water and salt... think again. Alex Hozven opens our eyes to the wide world of pickling using alternative methods for food preservation. She has built a business using traditional Asian pickling techniques, which use sea salt and natural brine (drawn by salt) from fresh garden vegetables, versus pickling using a wet acid (vinegar) solution.

According to the Obsessive Video documentary caption, posted on CHOW, Alex craved pickles when she was pregnant with her first son. Her passion for pickles led her to opening a family pickling business called The Cultured Pickle, located in Berkeley, CA.

The Cultured Pickle shop makes everything you can imagine in pickles, ranging from a Vintage Sauerkraut with green cabbage, caraway seed, juniper berries, green apples and sea salt, to seasonal specialties, such as summer Armenian cucumbers with fresh turmeric. The Cultured Pickle produces a range of pickled products, including 'Super Sauerkraut Salad' made from green cabbage, beets, carrots, ginger and sea salt, and a house Kim Chee made with pickled green cabbage daikon, carrots, ginger, cayenne pepper and sea salt.

Alex takes pride using Japanese techniques to make her company's fermented vegetable creations. According to her website, she purchases their veggies from an impressive range of locally grown, organic produce suppliers. Green thumbs up from GardenCuizine!

Note: Pickled products are very high in sodium, enjoy their intense flavors in moderation along with daily exercise and home cooked meals. Cooking at home helps to control your daily sodium intake.
 
Related Links  
Pickles: Helping Preserve Memories of Home by Lucy Morris, author of Pickled
Sodium in the Diet

Special thanks to Jill Nussinow, MS, RD for posting about The Cultured Pickle Shop on Facebook. Jill is known as ‘The Veggie Queen’ -- Growing Vegetable Enthusiasm - Vegetable, vegetarian, vegan and pressure cooking expert and Food and Nutrition Strategist

Copyright © 2010 Wind. All rights reserved.

GardenCuizine Product Spotlight: Umeboshi

Umeboshi 梅の実 Plum

About Umeboshi
Umeboshi is a pickled plum Japanese specialty. Umeboshi plums are commonly referred to as Japanese apricots or Chinese plums and grow on Prunus mume trees. They actually are more of an apricot than a plum and ripen to an apricot color. The plums have a similar taste to apricots when cooked and made into jam or jelly.

Shiso Perilla Herb
Japanese apricots are a natural orange color that is transformed to a beautiful purple-red 'plum' shade by the addition of Shiso (Perilla frutescens) leaves. Perilla is an easy-to-grow, annual garden herb that is available in red or green varieties. Red Perilla is what naturally colors the Umeboshi plums during their fermentation process in vinegar.

Umeboshi Products
Umeboshi vinegar is a derivative from Umeboshi making and is available in Asian, Gourmet and Health Food markets. In addition to vinegar, other Umeboshi products include whole pickled plums and Umeboshi paste. Umeshu, another popular Ume Product, is mostly found in Japan. It is a sweet liqueur made from Umeboshi plums, rock sugar and 35% distilled spirits (Shochu) or Vodka. Supplies to make Umeshu are abundant in Japanese local markets during plum season (May-June).

Moderation is Key
Umeboshi products are high in sodium due to the way they are made with layers of added salt atop the plums to extract the plums juices. However, they contain less sodium than pure salt and when used in moderation -- like you do salt -- Umeboshi can still be a part of a healthy diet. The fruity, salty taste adds excellent flavor to many foods including rice, sushi, onigiri, grain salads, pasta salads, steamed vegetables, and salad dressings.

For more information, check out my Umeboshi 梅の実 Plum article published on Dave's Garden

Related Links:

• Prunus mume Fact Sheet, U.S. Forest Service
• Japanese Flowering Apricot, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Photo: Unripe Ume Fruits by Sekiuchi. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, GNU Free Documentation License. P. mume

Copyright © 2009 Wind. All rights reserved.