Pickles

Perhaps I have too many cucumber plants. But I planted them to make homemade pickles like Amanda.  I met her once, she is a sailor, and a canner and then we participated in the Tough Mudder, so all in all, Amanda is pretty awesome, too bad she doesn't live in South East Wisconsin.

So I grew some cucumbers, this is a picture of one of the smaller ones.  Lisa and Patrick helped me, we sliced up 7 cucumbers, each was about 2 cups of sliced cucumbers. They are large and not 'pickling' cucumbers.  I did not see any pickling cucumber plants, maybe next year I will look harder.  If for some reason these don't work...

Amanda's recipe is for sweet pickles and I also wanted to make some dill, and some hot.... nothing like pickle variety.  Both recipes use white vinegar and pickling salt.  That mixture gets boiled together, and then poured over the sliced cucumbers.

Then we sealed them in a hot water bath.  This was less successful than the jam sealing.  We had a few theories, the cucumbers trap air beneath them, I tipped the jars to get the water off the top, we put the bands on too tight the first time.  They got boiled a second time and most of the jars sealed.

Amanda's Sweet Pickle Recipe

2 c. sugar (she uses a little bit less)

1 c. vinegar

1 tbsp pickling salt

1 tsp celery seed

7 c. cucumbers

1 c onion

Boil together, in a large jar put 7 cups on cucumbers 1 cup onion.  Pour boiled mixture over; let stand 24 hours.  

Or you can seal it in a hot water bath.  

Garlic Dill Recipe

2 c. water

2 c. white vinegar

2 Tbsp picking salt

garlic

dill heads

cucumbers

Same as before, boil water, vinegar and salt, then pour over the garlic, dill heads and cucumbers, I added jalapenos to two of the jars. 

Each recipe has to sit for a few weeks.

And as Rachel said, the most important part is labeling.