Always looking for ways to preserve the harvest, I look at all the clever techniques we have developed: salting, canning, fermentation, freezing, dehydration, etc.

Having spotted garlic dill flavored snacks (chips and popcorn), I wondered, could I make a similar pickle powder simply by dehydrating extra pickles? Wait, you’re thinking. What do you mean by “extra” pickles? The concept was new to me, too. But this year after growing my own cucumbers, I finally understood the term!

As an aside, I wanted to know, by keeping the dehydrating temperature below 110F, whether the probiotic bacteria survived. So one week after drying, I re-hydrated some of the powder, and placed it in an airtight container at room temperature to see if I could detect any bubbling (a sure sign of living bacteria!) THEY DID NOT SEEM TO SURVIVE. After a few days, the container smelled rancid and was not bubbling.