How to make pickles and sauerkraut - Part I

All right, kids, I had to do a little quick research on wikipedia before writing this blog entry....because a) I got confused reading all the different recipes to make pickles, and b) there are at least two, completely different ways to make pickles, and I wanted to make sure I had the terminology/verbiage right for this.  

So....If I say that I am making pickles, there are two different methods I could be talking about.   One method, that I'll talk about in another post, is to simple submerge a vegetable in vinegar (or a vinegar-salt-water-sugar-and-spices) mixture for a certain period of time.   I've done this with carrots, beans, beets, onions, garlic and cucumbers.   The finished product can either be canned (safely, because of the high acid content of the vinegar), or stored in the refrigerator and eaten within two weeks (although some recipes say these "refrigerator pickles" can be good for months at a time...I've certainly eaten commercial pickles months after I opened them and stuck them in the fridge...but then again, I often eat things I shouldn't....:)