This is from my friend Robert. Supposed to work for green beans, but they were pale and unappetizing.

Pickles Asparagus with Dill
Source: Arielle's Recipe Archives. Recipe is for 1 pint.

Asparagus spears
1 clove garlic
2 teaspoons pickling salt
1 teaspoon dill weed
1 teaspoon dried hot pepper flakes *optional
White vinegar

Wash asparagus spears, snap off tough ends and trim to fit into pint jar, leaving 1/2 " headspace. Pack into jar. Add garlic, salt, dill weed and hot pepper. Fill jar halfway with vinegar, then add boiling water to fill, leaving 1/4" headspace. Adjust lid. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

A slightly different version, uses more spices, no dill.
Pickled Asparagus

Source: Ziedrich, "The Joy of Pickling"
Makes 5 12-oz jars.

5 tablespoons garlic sliced
15 allspice berries
30 black peppercorns
20 coriander seeds
5 small pieces nutmeg or mace
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes (optional)
3 pounds asparagus spears
2 1/2 cups white wine vinegar
2 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 teaspoons pickling salt
2 tbsps sugar

Divide the seasonings evenly among 5 12-ounce jelly jars. Cut asparagus to fit and pack in sterile jars
In a non-reactive saucepan, bring to a boil the vinegar, water, salt and sugar (and pepper flakes). Pour the hot liquid over the asparagus, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Close the jars with hot two-piece caps and process 10 minutes.
Store in cool, dry dark place. Wait 3 weeks to eat.

Thank you! I think the first one is more what I'm looking for. I don't want all the "sweet" spices.

"zing" heat or sour like vinegar? If its sour like vinegar, just omit the sugar. If its heat you want, add some dried hot pepper flakes to each jar when they are being filled.

"Zing" like heat! I may use the Dilly Bean recipe I have too. I just wondered if anyone had a T&T asparagus one.

How about other flavors??? Lemon? Rosemary? Thyme?
Has anyone "played" with that?

Because asparagus has a fairly mild flavor on their own, I would suggest a small amount or tarregon as an added herb. Hollandaise is made with tarregon, and served over the gus. For heat in the brine, then add some different varieties of hot peppers as flavor, and use a few red ones for color.

I use the Joy of Pickling recipe posted above and it is AWESOME! I have about a dozen jars of the stuff at home. The leftover juice also makes a very yummy dirty vodka martini!! :-)

I've used the Joy of Pickling recipe as well, and didn't care for the sweetness and left the sugar out. I played around with it, and did some jars with French Tarragon, which is coming up at the same time. I liked that a bit better. I did one jar with a hot pepper in there as well, but by that point, it could have been a pickled anything.

Wild asparagus make the best pickles. But as they also make the best eating ones, its hard to keep enough to make the pickles.

Well, I pickled my asparagus last weekend using this recipe:

Pickled Asparagus

1/4 tsp. cayenne
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp. dill seed or 1 head
2 1/2 c. vinegar
1/4 c. pickling salt
2 1/2 c. water
Pack clean asparagus into clean jars, add spices from above, pour vinegar mixture to 1/2 inch of top. Process boiling water bath in 10 minutes

I'll let ya'll know in about a month if it was a good one! :+)
Boy, it sure takes a lot of "tops" to fill one 12-oz. jar!
I did 6 12-oz jars, put a quart of "pieces" from larger stalks in the freezer and took about 2 quarts to the church Easter Potluck. It just didn't seem like that much from nearly nine pounds of asparagus.

I'm going to try to be patient and wait for the price to come down a little more (maybe) and put more in the freezer.

What is everyone else paying this time of year?
Our larger grocery chains are from $1.29-$1.99/lb.
Deanna

if you do have wild asparagus, 'cultivate' it. You can do this by clearing away any weeds nearby, and feeding it lots of corn gluten to help with weeds from sprouting, as well as adding lots of nitrogen to the patch. Some of my asparagus plants are female (Mary Washingtons) and send up seed pods shaped like peas. I pluck a bunch of these and dry them a bit until they turn red, and then remove the 3-4 black seeds from inside each. I have about 10 plants sprouting in pots right now, and will be planted outdoors after the spring is above freezing. The stuff outside is getting really big year after year, and I expect many to be bigger than my thumb in diameter. Never pick any that are smaller than a pencil. Allow these to grow to full sized ferns and then cut them off at ground level when they die out in mid fall. I don't cover mine with anything except maybe some oak leaves that naturally drop on them for the winter months. If anyone wants a few of the seeds, I have some left I think. They take about 25 days to germinate indoors in small, deep pots. By the time they get planted outside, the roots are about 3 feet long and all curled up on the 6 inch tall pots.

Deanna, I think I remember Annie saying last summer that she uses her standard dilly beans recipe to do asparagus. I did the same and I think I forgot to eat them! I've been mostly staying at my boyfriend's and all my jars are in my own basement. Guess I'll move them over when I'm "sure" about staying here. ;-)

Melissa

Remember that asparagus has something like zip acidity. Also remember that pickled asparagus was the culprit in the California botulism episode a few years ago. Isn't there a pickled asparagus recipe in the Ball Book? This is one I wouldn't encourage fooling around with.

If you pickle asparagus, use full strength white vinegar if your really concerned about botulism. Pickled in straight vinegar and salt, with some dill and garlic, will be quite safe. If you want to add sugar, its oK too. If you do want to 'tone it down' some, only 1/4 of the liquid should be water, with 3/4 vinegar. Thats about the threashold of being safe to BWB process. Such as you would do with a much denser and larger cucumber.