Getting Ready To Hit The Road – Travel Update – Pickled Red Onions

After not traveling for the past 18 months, it’s nice to be getting ready to travel again.  If all goes as planned we will all be fully protected from Covid-19 by April 1. 

Spring is definitely in the air.

In anticipation of some serious traveling, I have had the chassis serviced and replaced the nine-year-old tires on the coach rear – I did the steers a couple of years ago.  It always fun to pay $495 + tax for each tire but I was delighted to get that much time from them.  We do keep covers on them for sun protection and park them on thin plastic cutting boards to protect them from the concrete.

Tires are just one of the big costs but no one ever said traveling in a motorhome was inexpensive, especially now that some RV parks charge as much for a place to park as a motel room would cost.  All we need to do now is repair a couple of coach issues and give it a thorough cleaning inside and out – it has green stuff growing on the wheels.

From a trip standpoint, we already have five travel club rallies planned for the year to Pensacola, FL, Pigeon Forge, TN, Nashville, TN, Franklin, NC, and south-central GA.  Right now, I’m enjoying making reservations for an extended trip to Wyoming and Colorado which will pretty much be the trip we cancelled last year due to Covid but we’re going in the opposite direction.

Over the past year and a half, our rig depreciated in value by several thousand dollars and we got nothing from it so we will try to make up for it a little this year by visiting some new places and hopefully catching up with some ole friends.

After seeing several posts about pickled red onions and getting a recommendation from our neighbor, we decided to give them a try.  After looking at some blog posts and several online recipes, I picked one for Quick Pickled Onions from Cookie and Kate and Bev made it per the recipe.

Quick-Pickled Onions

Ingredients:

1 medium red onion

½ cup water

¼ cup distilled white vinegar

¼ cup apple cider vinegar or additional white vinegar

1 ½ tablespoons maple syrup or honey

1 ½ teaspoons fine sea salt

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional, for heat)

Instructions:

1. We used the mandolin to slice the onions very thin.

2. Pack the onions into a 1-pint mason jar or similar heat-safe vessel. Place the jar in the sink, to catch any splashes of hot vinegar later.

3. In a small saucepan, combine the water, both vinegars, maple syrup, salt, and pepper flakes. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer over medium heat, then carefully pour the mixture into the jar over the onions.

4. Use a butter knife or spoon to press the onions down into the vinegar and pop any air bubbles in the jar. Let the pickled onions cool to room temperature (about 20 to 30 minutes), at which point they should be sufficiently pickled for serving.

5. Cover and refrigerate leftover pickled onions for later. Quick-pickled onions are best consumed within three days, but they keep for 2 to 3 weeks in the refrigerator.

The onions turned out well and now we need to find uses for them - I enjoyed them on a pimento cheese sandwich.

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Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

Early March pics