The past two days have been hot here in Chicago, and per the terms of our lease my husband and I couldn't install our air conditioner until this evening. It's in now, but I was making dinner while he was putting it in. In a 90+ degree kitchen, the last thing I wanted was a lot of heat, so the theme of tonight's dinner was pickles.
I served some of the leftover beet pickles (my husband hates these), and I made some carrot-lemon-vinegar pickles (he loved these). The recipe for the carrot lemon pickles was originally for turnips, but I thought it would work for carrots, and it did. I also made some okra pickled in soy, sake, and mirin. Finally, I actually cooked some peppers we had--just grilled them on our stove top grill and topped them with a soy-hot pepper-mayonnaise sauce. Our main dish was yellow tail, and it was very delicious. Overall, a colorful and mostly successful dinner.


The okra. This was a good way to do it, but if I make this again I'll blanch them first to get just a little bit of the bitterness out. But definitely a quick, easy, and delicious pickle.

Now... back to writing. With the air on, it's a bit easier to focus.