Slightly O/T, but if you're pickling veg, pickle some turnips.

Make yourself a sandwich of hummus, falafel, feta, and pickled turnips.

It will make you very happy.

Sandor Katz!

http://www.wildfermentation.com/who-is-sandorkraut/

I love pickles especially beets and cukes! I have done the canning version which is time consuming and does take up space (the amount of space depends on how many jars and what size.) I just started doing fast pickling a couple weeks ago. I've eaten fast pickled cukes but haven't done it yet, but have done the fast beets and they're great. They're also super easy and keep for about a week.

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/quick_pickled_beets.html

I used that recipe. I peel the beets w/ a vegetable peeler, slice them, toss in a casserole dish w/ 1T water and cover w/ plastic wrap. Microwave like 5 min or something. While that's going to I do the beet sauce in the recipe. Couldn't be easier. I didn't have cinnamon sticks the first couple of times but they still tasted great. I did a batch w/ high quality red wine vinegar and another w/ costco vinegar. The high quality was a bit better but either is perfectly edible.

Go for lacto fermented style pickled veggies. Much more interesting and healthy than things soaking in vinegar.

Very easy!

No once you do it a few times it is easy. Just follow a recipe..ball jars has a lot.

Pickling isn't hard but canning is a pain.

How hard is it to pickle vegetables? I'm thinking, in particular, cucumbers and beets. Am I going to have to invest money and precious storage space in a ton of jars? I remember my mom canning in the 70s (the boiling, the straining, melting the wax, etc.) and the jars and jars and jars of stuff in our basement that she put up for the winter. It was a ton of work. Nowadays, I see all sorts of stuff pickled and I think there has to be an easier way...