Friday, August 20, 2010

Canning Pickles

It's canning season and I thought I'd share my favorite dill pickle recipe. It was my moms and my grandmas and I'm sure my great-grandmas...and so on!!

I planted pickling cukes this year, but don't really have enough so I got a box of them at my local farm, where I get them every year. Unfortunately you have to take what they give you, so my cukes are a little bigger than I like.

First order of business...clean 'em up!! I take a scrub brush to each one and clean them really well. This also gets the little "pricklies" off too!
I cut off each end and then with scientific preciseness, prick each cuke 3 - 4 times with a corn skewer!!! I've never seen this in a recipe, but my mama did it and so do I!!!! If you have a 16 year old sitting around doing nothing (which is what 16 year olds do), you can have him do the piercing. WARNING: He will protest!!! Ignore him and put him to work!!!!
Fill your clean jars with a big sprig or two of dill, a sliced clove of garlic and then carefully pack your jars, quite tightly, with cukes.

Ladle your hot brine over the cukes, get out any air bubbles, seal and water bath for 7 minutes.


Right after you take them out of the canner, they look a little cloudy...



But a few days later the cukes have soaked up the brine, and are starting to look like pickles!!! Let them sit for a month or so to really take on the flavor.




Put them in front of your cute, old toy stove, accessorized with American Girl canning goodies and post to your blog!!!!


DILL PICKLES
Wash and scrub cucumbers. Cut off bottoms and tops and pierce with a fork or corn skewer 3- 4 times each.
In clean, wide-mouth quart jars place:
1 clove garlic, sliced
1 - 2 sprigs of dill
Pack cukes tightly in jars, leaving about 1" head space
Brine:
3 C vinegar
9 C water
3/4 C salt
Bring to a boil and boil until salt is dissolved.
Pour brine over cucumbers, remove air bubbles and seal.
Process in a water bath for 7 minutes.
This recipe makes 7 quarts. If I have any brine left over I just add dill and garlic to a jar, slice up a few cukes, pour on the brine and let it sit in the fridge...very tasty!! and you can add to the jar as you use up the cukes.
Don't forget to let the processed pickles sit for a month to absorb the flavor. I like to refrigerate mine before using as they are a little crisper when cold.
Enjoy!!

8 comments:

  1. Yum! We share pretty much the same recipe and the same process. Last time we made some we ended up with an extra salty batch. I'm pretty sure both my Mom & I added salt or we did a double batch of brine but forgot to add the double water..or something. Eeek, they were salty!!

    Have fun...btw, love your 16 year old comment..that IS what they do..

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  2. My Moms pickle recipe..says to let them sit on the shelf for about a month until they settle down to domestic life.
    Whatever a pickles domestic life is?
    They look yum.

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  3. A Pregnant Woman's Paradise!!! ;)

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  4. Thought I'd try posting a comment here, since you's havin' trouble. I'll post as many as you'd like! About the camper - I'm not a sista - if you mean Mary Janes Farm - she does stuff way too far west for my likin' Perhaps I should start one here in the Midwest. I have a 1971 Sprite camper, we call it The Happy Squirrel - The Squirrel for short, if you click on 'The Squirrel' under my labels all the posts about buying it and fixing it up SHOULD be there, let me know if you need/want more info. : < >

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  5. Oh Holly Dolly! Will you please post the recipe (or email it to me) Little Mom's dill pickles? And perhaps you have the family Dilly Bean recipe too? - Oh goodness, I'm so needy!!!

    Thanks for posting this one too! I can just see Aunt Colleen in her amazing blue dress, beautiful matching black patent pumps and her perfect hair/makeup/nails topped off with apron canning these very cukes. Makes me smile!!!

    xoxo

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  6. I don't even like pickles but yours looked good. So they must be amazing.

    Missing Tyler, won't he reconsider and come back to LC?

    Hope to see you soon...

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  7. Shoot - I was totally going to make them until I read that you have to sit them in front of your toy stove!! I don't have one! Guess I'll have to buy one so I can make them next year! :-) Look awesome - I'm a pickle lover, so I think I will have to test one!!

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  8. I'm going to have to give this pickle recipe a try next year.

    Love the toy kitchen stove... didn't know the American Girls line had those little pots/dishes. My daughter is 22 so I haven't followed the American Girl line for quite a while... I think I need to check it out. I have a thing for anyhting small!

    Chris

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