After a very early morning wake-up call, I landed in Portland yesterday afternoon to spend the holidays with my parents. So far, I’ve done nothing but catch up on sleep and tag along to a pair of seasonal potlucks.

Though my mom is a fine cook, in recent years, I’ve become her potluck consultant (she claims that after a lifetime of inventing dishes, she’s out of ideas). Regularly, she calls me when she needs some fresh inspiration. And when I’m in town, it becomes my responsibility to help dream up and prepare our potluck contributions.

Knowing that more than a few of you might be looking for side dishes and items for shared meals in the coming week or two, I thought I might share what I came up with over the last two nights.

On Saturday, we cut carrots and parsnips into sticks (two pounds of each), tossed them with olive oil, minced rosemary, salt and pepper and spread them out on a cookie sheet in single layers. Roasted at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes and turned at least once, they turn into crisp, caramelized nuggets of root vegetable goodness. To serve, I heaped them into a casserole dish and topped them with some chopped parsley, plucked moments before from my mom’s garden.

For tonight’s offering, we took a dish of mashed potatoes and kabocha squash. They get stirred together with beaten eggs, a bit of butter, chopped fresh sage and two kinds of cheese. It is ridiculously decadent and good. I think it’s perfect for a potluck, because it’s the sort of thing that must be shared. It’s far too rich to have for just a couple of people, but I crave it this time of year and love that I can have a generous taste while not being responsible for eating the whole thing.

I also brought two jars of pickles from home for tonight’s party, because I knew it was a crowd that would appreciate them. And I heard more than one person exclaim excitedly when they saw the jar of pickled okra.

How have the rest of you been handling your holiday parties and potlucks this season?

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If you’re a long time Food in Jars reader, you might have noticed there’s been a serious dearth of new pickle recipes on the site. It’s not that I stopped suspending fruits and vegetables in puckery brines, it’s just that I got a pickling gig with Serious Eats. Once a week, I offer up a seasonal pickle recipe in a column we call ‘In a Pickle.’ Starting now, I’m going to recap those recipes on an occasional basis, in the hopes that it will help you folks find something new and delicious.

Last week, I made a batch of hot pepper rings. The brine has a red wine vinegar base and the finished pickles are wonderfully tangy and hot.

Before that, I pickled up a small sugar pumpkin. I know that I go on and on here about how pumpkin isn’t safe for boiling water bath canning, but this is the one exception. If you cut the pumpkin in small enough pieces and submerge it in a undiluted vinegar brine, you’ve got yourself one heck of a tasty (and safe) pickle.

The week before that, I made three pints of pickled golden beets. Those beets were so incredibly sweet that I didn’t add even a speck of sugar to the brine and still, they are so sweet ‘n tart.

Quick pickled radishes. A fridge-only pickle so that they retain their crunch. Tangy. Bright pink. Good on tacos.

Pickled Seckel pears. They are adorable and taste like Christmas. I’ve made a ton to give as gifts this year (only to the deserving, though).

To see the complete archive of recipes I’ve cooked up for ‘In a Pickle,’ click here.

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At least once a week, someone asks me if they can reuse the brine that’s leftover in the jar when all the pickles have been eaten. I’m here to say, yes! You can absolutely reuse that brine as long as…

1. You’re only using it to make refrigerator pickles. Once a brine has been used to can something, that’s it. You can’t do it again because you can’t guarantee the acidity level once it has been heated up, hot water processed, absorbed by vegetables and refrigerated for an unknown amount of time.
2. It doesn’t look murky or cloudy. I typically find that the maximum number of times you can replenish the veggies in a jar is three. After that, you’ve lost too much brine volume and it’s developed an unhealthy scum.

One tip when refilling your pickle jar is to take out the last of the pickles from the previous batch before popping the fresh veg in. I forgot to do it last time, and now all my wonderfully cured pickle slices are trapped at the bottom of the jar.

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I took the day off from work on Monday in order to head up to New York for a day of the Fancy Food Show. Last summer, I went for two and a half days, but this year, since I’m not writing for a general interest food site at the moment, I decided to just spend a single day wandering the show floor. I had a good time, tasting and chatting, but the whole time I was there, I kept feeling like I didn’t quite belong.

As I looked at all the available products, I realized how little I’m interested in promoting things for people to buy (despite all the wonderful things available out there in the world). I’m far more interested in encouraging people to shop their farmers market, plant a garden and make their jams, spread, pickles and condiments on their own. However, the show was great in that it planted many seeds in my canning brain, that are now germinating and growing into recipes. Here are some of the best examples of foods in jars that I saw, maybe they’ll help inspire some of you as well!

This Black Olive with Ginger Jam was amazing – sweet, sharp and poignant in the very same bite.

These were some of the best pickled veggies I’ve ever tasted, they manage to be crisp, bright and shelf stable. As some of you might know, when you can pickled vegetables, it can be a challenge to keep them crunchy and safe for storage at the same time. This company has figured out a magic solution (when I pressed them about their process, they clammed up).

Carrot jam? Carrot jam! As far as I could tell, this was shredded carrots, cooked with sugar, spices and a bit of vinegar. It’s going on my list of things I’d like to do someday.

These port wine and fruit jams were just lovely. Sweet and rich, the port wasn’t overpowered, but was definitely there. They’d be excellent with cheese (and wouldn’t be hard to make at home).

Actually, here’s one product that I do love, that you can’t really make at home. Organic peanut butter from the folks who bring you Cream Nut (the most delicious and expensive peanut butter around). This one might be worth buying (probably only as a special treat though, it is quite pricey).

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Back when I made the pickled asparagus, I ended up having some brine leftover after I filled the jars. Not wanting to be wasteful, I poured what remained into a quart jar and shoved it towards the back of the fridge, to use another day. Over the weekend, I finally put it to good use.

I trimmed and quartered a pound of carrots, blanched them briefly (for no more than 15 seconds, as I didn’t want them to lose their crunch) and packed them into a wide mouth quart jar. Then I brought the brine to a quick boil and poured it in on top of the carrots. Several days later, they are piquant and a little bit spicy (I tucked a long red pepper into the jar along with the carrots).

I did not do a hot water process with these pickles and instead chose to keep them in the fridge. I did this for several reasons. The first is that it’s not advisable to use reboiled brine for shelf-safe pickles. Part of the reason that pickled vegetables are safe to eat after a hot water process is that the acidity of the vinegar keeps the nasty bacteria at bay. Regular canned vegetables, the ones that aren’t pickled, must be pressure canned to be safe. I knew that my leftover brine was plenty vinegary in terms of making my carrots taste amazing. However, I didn’t know whether the level of acidity was adequate in terms of keeping those carrots shelf-safe. So I decided to go the safe route, skip the water bath and opt for refrigeration as my means of preservation.

Additionally, sometimes I just want to make pickles, without hauling out a canning pot. Making a single jar with some leftover brine means that I can do just that. It took all of ten minutes to make those pickled carrots and now I have something delicious to go with soup, a sandwich, salad or just munched alone (and since the pickled asparagus I made a few weeks back is long gone) for the next week or so.

For those of you who don’t have some extra brine sitting around your fridge, here’s a quick formula for making a small batch of brine, so that you can make just one or two jars of pickles at a time.

Small-Batch Pickling Brine

1 cup filtered water
1 cup apple cider vinegar (make sure it’s commercial vinegar that is at least 5% acidity)
1 tablespoon pickling salt (or 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt)

A palmful (each) of at least a few of the following:

• crushed bay leaves
• peppercorns
• hot pepper flakes
• allspice berries
• coriander seeds
• whole cloves

Pour the water, vinegar, salt and spices into a small saucepan. As it comes to a boil, pack your veggies into a freshly washed jar (one pound of trimmed and quartered carrots fits nearly perfectly into a wide-mouth quart-sized jar). You can also tuck a slice of lemon, a hot pepper or a garlic clove into the jar as well. When the brine is boiling, pour it into the veggie-packed jar, leaving about 1/2 inch of headspace. Make sure to run a butter knife around inside the jar, to release any air bubbles trapped behind the vegetables (this isn’t as important in this case as it is when you’re doing a hot water bath, but it’s a good habit to get into anyway).

Gently screw a two-part canning lid on the jar (making sure to protect your hands with a towel or potholder) and let it sit until it’s cooled down. The lid may seal during the cooling process. However, this does not mean it’s safe to store it at room temperature indefinitely. Once the jar is fairly cool, it should still go in the fridge. Let them chill out in the brine for at least 2-3 days before you dig in.

I know it reads like a lot of steps to follow, but really, it takes no time. So go pickle something already.

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