I am looking at my vegie garden, planted well before I started this diet, (corn on the cob is calling me -dunno what to do with all those on a low carb diet?) and wondering whether anyone can recommend recipes for a lower carb preserve for all my cucumbers that are ready at once. The stream of cucumber has been a go-to vegetable all summer, fantastic for quick, easy salads, but what to do with the last batch all ready at once? Most chutneys are high in sugar, and I don’t eat a lot of the purely vinegarish-pickle type of preserve. Are there pickles I can make with cucumbers that are more chutney-ish?
I also have a huge number of chilli I need to use, and last years sweet chilli sauce, while very tasty, is probably not the right thing to stock the cupboard with! I have made some green chilli paste, but that isn’t a longer term keeper, so recommendations welcome please.

I think that most preserves use either sugar or vinegar as the preserving agent. You can ferment some veg but I think cucumbers will be too watery for fermentation. Can you add them to a smoothie? Just sowed some seeds this week – lots of greens and my asparagus under cover is showing it’s head.

Hi Hawks, I eat cucumbers like an apple! A 2-3 inch chunk and munch on it, that uses up the excess in the summer. Having said that, I have a recipe for Chilled Cucumber Soup with Dill and Chives that will freeze well and I intend to try it this summer if the weather is good enough to provide a glut of cucumbers. There are similar recipes on the internet that you can try, the one I have does not use potatoes so and adds plain yoghurt at the end. If you freeze it daily amounts before you add yoghurt it will last a while!
I have also made a cucumber pickle a few years ago which was great, but I can’t find the recipe. It comes out as a clear liquid full of sliced cucumber, sliced onion, mustard seeds and cloves. There is a lot of sugar in the making of it, but the amount you take – 1-2 tsps. at a time may make is usable. The contents were, cider vinegar, cucumber, sugar, onion, salt, mustard seeds, turmeric and cloves. There are a number of other pickled cucumber recipes on the internet if you search.
good luck with the growing

Hi Hawks, I put my chillies on a tray in the freezer then bag them once they are frozen – keeps me in chillies for the whole year. They are so easy to cut straight from the freezer too.
I used to dry them in my dehydrator but found freezing is a much better solution – and faster.

BTW I’m glad your asthma has calmed down in a more rural setting – perhaps like me urban pollution causes you more problems than pollen.

I’m like Orchid, I eat cucumbers like a banana! I used to hate even the smell of them until I was pregnant and them couldn’t get enough of them. Strange.
🙂

Thanks for that. It turns out you can ferment cucumbers in brine, or pickle in vinegar. We might do both. We have way too many big fat ones ready at once to eat, even if we ate nothing else!
We’ll probably make some chilli sauce and freeze the others.
I’m going to make a few zucchini muffins or something like that I can freeze to use those up. They’ll be handy for when the munchies happen.