Memorial Day Brunch – Farmer’s Garden Pickles

First off, happy Memorial Day everyone! What are your plans? Barbeque, relaxing, hanging with friends and family?? I’ll be doing the latter, brunching with the hubby and my family, and hopefully getting some sunshine whilst doing so.

I’ve been working with Vlasic the last couple of weeks on creating some epic Memorial Day brunch recipes for you all, some of the creations including creative ways to use their delicious new Farmer’s Garden pickles. If you haven’t tried these guys yet, you must! All the pickles are artisanal-quality, premium pickles, made with honest ingredients and no artificial flavors. They’re also made with the finest, specially selected ingredients – deliciously ripe cucumbers, whole garlic cloves, slices of red bell pepper, rounds of carrots and fresh herbs and spices – harvested at the peak of freshness. I seriously can’t get enough of them! In the last month I’ve gone through five different jars of them – by myself.

There are five delicious varieties of Farmer’s Garden by Vlasic pickles: Zesty Garlic Chips, Bread & Butter Chips, Kosher Dill Spears, Kosher Dill Halves and Dill Chips. In this first recipe I created for them – an extra spicy bloody mary – I used pretty much every aspect of the kosher dill halves – the juice, garlic, red pepper, carrot and of course, the pickle! I knocked up the typical spice factor with the addition of fiery sirracha sauce and horseradish, and of course used other traditional bloody mary ingredients – celery salt, wortishire sauce, lemon juice and plenty of black pepper.

Next up, bacon.

What’s brunch without bacon?? Honestly, I can’t have breakfast or brunch without it, but if you’re serving a crowd, traditional bacon can get a little boring. Guests will be equal parts impressed, confused and totally intrigued by this sweet and subtly spicy blueberry cayenne version. There’s an initially sweet taste from the preserves, but then the cayenne pepper hits your palate on the back end, making these guys seriously addictive, so be sure to make plenty because they’ll go fast.

Bonus? They’re a cinch to whip up – bacon is lined up on a cooling rack placed on top of a baking sheet, brushed with some warm cayenne pepper spiked blueberry preserves and baked until each piece is super crispy. I estimate I snatched no less than six pieces – shhhh, don’t tell….

Head on over to the Farmer’s Garden website to check out more delicious Memorial Day recipes by Vlasic and other bloggers!

You can also follow the conversation on Twitter using #farmtojar and enter for a chance to win a summer entertaining package, worth $1,500, through the Savor Simplicity Sweepstakes. Visit www.farmersgardenvlasic.com to enter and for more information on Savor Simplicity.

Happy Memorial Day!

I was compensated by Vlasic to create the aforementioned Memorial Day brunch recipes, as always, every single thought and opinion is my own.