That's right- pickles! 6 quarts of them in fact!
My garden has done pretty well, but the cucumber plants have done GREAT! So with it only being myself and my husband, I knew we could never eat all the cucumbers before they spoiled. Solution- to make pickles! I wish I'd taken pictures along the way, but I do have one of the finished product!
Now I've never done this before. So with a little help from my good friend "Google", I decided I could in fact do this! The first step was the find the Mason jars. Harris Teeter- no luck. Target- same bad luck. And so I took the plunge and went to Walmart- good luck.
Next I had to get the pickling spices. And the local grocery store, Farm Fresh had those. I wasn't sure how many pickles I would get from my "cucs", so I just bought one packet of dill pickle spice.
Getting home, I began to slice my cucumbers into spears.
Next step- boil the spice, vinegar and water.
While this is going, it was vital to sterilize the jars, which meant immersing them in a boiling bath for 10 mins.
Once the spice mixture boiled I poured this over the bowl full of speared cucumbers. Then I let them sit for 30 mins.
So then I stuffed the jars with my cucumbers and filled each jar with the "juice".
Now I decided to just put one jar in the fridge to eat in the next few weeks, and preserve the other 3 quart size jars. After screwing on the lids, I put them in boiling water for 15 mins.
Next problem- I still had more cucumbers! So around 10pm I made another run to the Farm Fresh to get the bread and butter spice.
And then I went through all the same steps as the dill pickles, except this "juice" had 5 cups worth of sugar! I ended up with 2 quarts of bread and butter pickles and I preserved both of these.
My garden has done pretty well, but the cucumber plants have done GREAT! So with it only being myself and my husband, I knew we could never eat all the cucumbers before they spoiled. Solution- to make pickles! I wish I'd taken pictures along the way, but I do have one of the finished product!
Now I've never done this before. So with a little help from my good friend "Google", I decided I could in fact do this! The first step was the find the Mason jars. Harris Teeter- no luck. Target- same bad luck. And so I took the plunge and went to Walmart- good luck.
Next I had to get the pickling spices. And the local grocery store, Farm Fresh had those. I wasn't sure how many pickles I would get from my "cucs", so I just bought one packet of dill pickle spice.
Getting home, I began to slice my cucumbers into spears.
Next step- boil the spice, vinegar and water.
While this is going, it was vital to sterilize the jars, which meant immersing them in a boiling bath for 10 mins.
Once the spice mixture boiled I poured this over the bowl full of speared cucumbers. Then I let them sit for 30 mins.
So then I stuffed the jars with my cucumbers and filled each jar with the "juice".
Now I decided to just put one jar in the fridge to eat in the next few weeks, and preserve the other 3 quart size jars. After screwing on the lids, I put them in boiling water for 15 mins.
Next problem- I still had more cucumbers! So around 10pm I made another run to the Farm Fresh to get the bread and butter spice.
And then I went through all the same steps as the dill pickles, except this "juice" had 5 cups worth of sugar! I ended up with 2 quarts of bread and butter pickles and I preserved both of these.
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YUM! Sounds delicious!
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