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I’ve been having lots of fun thinking of different ways to use up the fruits and veggies in my weekly produce basket from Suncoast Organics ^[2]. Each week they offer several interesting and unusual items that I rarely, if ever, see at the supermarket - like the yardlong beans ^[3] I made last week.

This week, I ordered some organic red okra. I didn’t even know that okra came in red. Since red is one of my signature colors, I ordered some. Then I remembered that no one around here particularly likes okra. Except in gumbo. Or jambalaya. But I wasn’t about to start a Cajun cooking marathon in this 95 degree heat. Nosirree! Until it cools off a little, nobody’s getting much more than salad or a quick stir fry out of me! Okay, I might be persuaded to throw some steaks or chicken on the grill, but that’s it - unless there’s jewelry involved.

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But, these lovely little, rosy, red okra deserved more than just being chopped up in a salad. Look how cute they are! They needed to be front and center in whatever I used them in. So, I decided to make pickles out of them. And, not just any old pickles, mind you, but wicked sweet and spicy pickles. I wanted to make okra Wickles!

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I’m not a huge pickle fan, but I do love Wickles Pickles ^[6]. Now, I had absolutely no idea how to make these incredibly good, sweet and spicy pickles. And, for obvious reasons, their seventy year-old secret family recipe was nowhere to be found on the Internet. So I read the ingredient list on the back of a Wickles jar and decided to wing it. Either I’m incredibly talented or incredibly lucky, because my pickled okra turned out fantastic!

The first thing I did was dig out a few pretty mason jars. Then, I sterilized them in a big pot of boiling water. After that, I made the brine for my pickles by simmering a mixture of apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, sugar, garlic and a variety of different spices and seasonings. Then, I stuffed the okra in the jars with garlic cloves and chili peppers and topped each jar off with brine. The hardest part about making this recipe was waiting a few days before I could eat the okra!

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If you have never made your own pickles before, you MUST try this. It’s so easy! Another plus is that you can adjust the amounts of each ingredient to suit your taste. The measurements I used were basically the result of trial and error. In other words, I just kept adding stuff until it tasted right to me. If you don’t have one of the ingredients that i used, leave it out – or add some others in. There really is no right or wrong in this. The only ingredients that I think are essential are the vinegars, sugar, garlic and chili peppers.

So, go crazy! Make some pickles! You know you want to.

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Enjoy!