i've never made refridgerator pickles, but have canned pickles a few times. unfortunately my grandmother's dill pickle recipe doesn't come out as good when i make it. i helped her can pickles a bazillion times, and i can't figure out what i'm doing differently.... she suggested maybe it was the water, since i lived in an area that had pretty icky water at that time...

anyways, the only difference between her regular dills and her HOT mix was that the hot mix had a hot pepper or two in each jar. it was the same brine and the same spices. and it basically doesn't matter what sorts of veggies go in the jar.... the brine is acidic enough to preserve all of them. (i suppose that would depend on the specific recipe, but i've no idea what the lowest safe proportions of acid, salt and water would be). but we used cauliflower, green beans, carrots, pearl onions, cukes, and probably other things in the hot mix.

i'd say that if you find a recipe that looks promising but contains peppers, just leave out the peppers. and let me know how it goes. i'd be interested in trying a fridge pickle recipe if you find one that's awesome. i'm not interested in sweet pickles either. they're evil, lol.