Try This: Sonoma Brinery Pickles

Outrageous Bread & Butter Pickles from Sonoma Brinery

Barbeque season is in full swing here in Sonoma County and it will last well into the fall.  Given the long season, I periodically tweak my standards because if not, things can get old.   

I recently made Sonoma Brinery’s Outrageous Bread & Butter Pickles my go-to pickles for burgers and I could not be happier. I first discovered them in a restaurant as a side to what else, a burger. I tracked them down and found out that they are sold at my local grocery store.

Packaging for Sonoma Brinery pickles

The Outrageous Bread & Butter pickles are simply pickle chips and thinly sliced bits of onion.  They have a bit of heat and bit of sweetness and are downright addictive.  I like that they are local (the company is working on national distribution, go here to check where in your area you can buy them) and they are fresh (look for them in the refrigerator section of the grocery store).  The pickles are great with a burger and are also good chopped and stirred into tuna.  Or, you can just eat them straight out of the container. I won’t tell.

P.S. July is national pickle month, so yet another reason to expand your pickle repertoire and give a Sonoma Brinery Pickle a try!

Try This: Long Pepper

I took a cooking class in Italy a few years ago and not only learned to make homemade pasta and focaccia bread but was introduced to a pepper called long pepper. What is long pepper? Well, as you can probably guess from the name it’s called that because the peppercorns are fairly long – some are about two inches long. Tastewise, it has less heat than regular pepper. It’s more fragrant too. After we got home from Italy we tracked down long pepper online (I am not sure I have ever seen it in a store).

Over time, it has replaced common black pepper at my house. I like it better because it’s more mellow and flavorful than regular black pepper. I also like that is does not have as much heat.

One thing to know, due to the large pepper corns you’ll need to break them up a bit before they go into your pepper grinder. I use a mortar and pestle do to this. You could also put the long pepper into a plastic bag and hit it with either the smooth side of a meat cleaver or a hammer wrapped in a towel.

Have you ever tried long pepper?