This is from my personal cookbook. I've tried a million recipes and what I've found is that our family likes this (more simple) recipe the best. My favorite part of refrigerator pickles is that you can add anything into the brine. We often have onions, peppers, and even zucchini in the pickle brine as well.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
less than 1 tsp. celery seed or dried dill.
1 tsp. table salt
3-4 slicing cucumbers or 7-10 pickles
2-3 shallot sized onions
Start by peeling all the pickles or slicers. Cut them into about 1/4 inch slices (or larger). Put into a large bowl and sprinkle with salt, mix them up. After about an hour you'll see there is a lot of water to pour off, pour off excess liquid. Clean onions and cut into 1/4 inch slices.
Boil the vinegar, sugar, and salt together until sugar is completely dissolved. Then add either celery seed or dill. If you've got a lot of pickles, maybe try making both and see which you like better. I like the dill and Farmer Ben likes the celery seed better. Let the brine cool for until almost room temperature.
Combine onions and cucumbers in large bowl. Pour brine over the top of the pickles and onions and put in refrigerator. They will last for up to a few months, and the flavor will get stronger as time passes.
If using fresh dill from your CSA Shares, pull off the larger stems leaving only the leaflets. Roll the leaflets together to make a tight elongated ball of dill and use a paring knife to cut the dill. That way, you're not cutting each individual leaflet, it makes it a lot faster. Add about 1/4 cup of the fresh dill to substitute for the celery seed or dried dill.
