Monday, July 21, 2014

Making Pickles Makes Monday Fun

I had meant to make dill pickles this weekend, but my weekend project mentioned in my previous post took up more time than I thought it would. I had picked some Sugar Crunch Cucumbers from the garden and wanted to get them pickled ASAP, so I did it tonight. Sugar Crunch are supposed to be good both raw and pickled, so we shall see how they turn out.


This was my first venture into canning using a boiling water bath. I have only done what I guess you call refrigerator pickling before. (I posted about making pickled curry eggs and pickled radishes on the Fourth of July.) I was a little nervous, but all seems to have gone well. I borrowed my mom’s big canning kettle. I found the best way to get this huge kettle of water to a boil was to put it over two burners.


I followed Marisa McClellan’s Classic Dill Pickles recipe from her book “Food in Jars.” I hope it turns out alright because it indicates it should make four pints of pickles and mine only made three.


Last year I did a post about a one-day workshop I took on canning with Marisa. We had made strawberry vanilla jam, which turned out great. She has some recipes on her Food In Jars website and she also has a new book called “Preserving by the Pint.

Now that I have seemingly successfully tackled the boiling canning process, there’s no holding me back!


3 comments:

  1. How fun! When are you allowed to taste them?

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    1. That's a good question – one I was trying to figure out myself. The book doesn't seem to say how long before you can eat them. The Old Farmer's Almanac website says 3 weeks and www.pickyourown.org says 4-6 weeks for pickling cucumbers. I guess I'll wait at least 4 weeks.

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    2. Oops, I was wrong. The book DOES say how long to cure: at least one week.

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