Pickling

Today is nice and cool...a lovely marine layer has presented itself and does it ever feel good!! Just a little too hot and humid for me yesterday...all you Washingtonians will understand this, while the rest of the nation scoffs at my wimpiness!!!

Went out to the garden early this morning to set up the sprinkler and pick some raspberries. I noticed that I had some cauliflower and broccoli ready to pick...a lot of it!!!

So...I decided to do some canning.

I got this recipe from a local Boxx Berry Farm, years ago and really like it. About three years ago I decided to use it to pickle some vegetables and have used it for that ever since!!!

ELLA'S DILL PICKLES

In clean jars, place sprigs of dill and slices of garlic.  (I load mine up!)
Pack tightly with cleaned cucumbers.

In a large pot, bring to a boil: 1 quart white vinegar
                                                2 quarts water
                                                2/3 c salt

Cover and boil for 15 minutes...the recipe says to "cover the kettle"...love that!

Keeping your jars hot, pour brine over cukes and seal. They may be processed in a water bath for 5 minutes if they don't seal or if you just want to be safe.

I actually use my mom's dill pickle recipe for regular pickles, but i love this brine for refrigerator pickles. I don't process them, just keep them in the fridge...they last at least a year this way.



ANYWAY....back to my vegies!

This is a big tub! There are 4 heads of cauliflower, 2 heads of cabbage and the bottom is full of broccoli...not to mention the abundance in the refrigerator!

Ignore, for awhile, what the postman just delivered to your door...(this is my second fall magazine this week!)

Get out your big jars...mine are half gallon size, and wash them up. You can sterilize them, but I put them away really clean and just give them another good wash before I use them. It helps to have a cute old colander to rinse the vegies in!

Cut some fresh dill from your garden...or buy some at the farmer's market. I have a few volunteers in the garden and  so I used that.

Cut up the vegies you want...I always use cauliflower, onions, celery and garlic, but this time I added carrots and some radishes too. We'll see how that works out!

Fill your jars with dill and garlic. Mix all the vegies together in a big bowl so you get something of everything in each jar. Nibble if you feel the urge!

After the jars are filled and you're waiting for the brine to be ready, make yourself a bowl of garden fresh beets! Add a glob of butter and lots of salt and take a glance at that mail that came...just a glance! And remember tonight that you had beets earlier in the day...you know what I mean...

Add brine and put your lids on. If I use regular canning lids it usually seals, but doesn't really matter as it's kept in the fridge. I like these plastic lids by ball...no rusting and easy to use.

That's it! Summer fresh vegies all year! Now...off to read my magazine!!

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!!

Getting Back to my Roots

Found a parsley plant growing in my garden yesterday. Amongst the weeds it battled on, something growing from a random seed, strewn carelessly about.

I wanted to make sure I dug it up before the garden was plowed, so I did that and transplanted it to a little enamelware container.

My pioneer roots kicked in and I decided to get out the dehydrator and do a little preserving.I cut back most of the plant, separated and snipped, and lay the pieces on the drying racks.

Plugged it in outside yesterday afternoon and then. yes. ForGot all about it until I saw it outside the door this morning! But my trusty dryer was ever watchful (and it was rainy last night, which helped!) and I opened it up to find this...

Hello, beautiful, green loveliness!!

Now I have a full jar of fresh, dried parsley! Some of you may not get the excitement over this, but let me tell you...it's wonderful!!!!

The plant will continue to grow back and I'll continue to dry and be very, very happy!!

A New Beginning

Greetings from the face of the earth, from which I have fallen off of!!!!! Where has the time gone? Why can't I seem to get it together in the blogging world? I so admire my friend Tami, who manages to post a little something every day. She has it published into a book and it's such a wonderful journal of her daily family life. That's my goal people!!!! (By the way, Tami's son, Sam, is being sworn in to the Army tomorrow, so keep him and his family in your prayers please!!)

I'll try to give you the month in review, in no particular order, cuz it's been so long since I blogged that once again I don't remember how to load my photos!!!!

We've started a remodel-addition. Somewhere I had a before picture, but a Christmas one came up! Go figure! You can sort of see that we're pushing the LR out a bit. Putting a big fireplace in the center, getting rid of my "trailer" windows and putting 3 cute little ones above the FP. Also took out a kitchen wall and a dining room wall to open things up. It looks great and we're so glad we did this. Unfortunately it won't be done until the end of Nov. and I'm stressing a bit! Fall is my FAVORITE time of year and it about does me in not to decorate and enjoy a nice book and coffee by the fire!

In other news....moved Ashleigh down to Seattle last week. Here she is, her last day at home!

She'll be a junior at Seattle Pacific University! I made the mistake of only taking pictures of all the issues with the house (for future reference with the landlords) and didn't get any of the cute part! I have one shot of her LR! Isn't the red adorable? She's sharing the house with 5 other girls and they are set to have a good time!!!

Got everything in the truck and her car with a little room to spare!

Brian was down to see her this weekend. I sent the camera so he could take the cute pictures. He forgot. He took Tyler and his friends to a Sounders game in the Red Bull Suite. The goalie came up after the game...gave them all signed jersey's, pictures, and hung out for awhile. Brian left the camera in the car. Later that night he took Ashleigh and her friends to a Mariner's game. Forgot the camera again.................I love my husband, I do, I do!!!!

Tyler started school at the end of August. Didn't quite get the haircut in time for school pictures, but it is a lot shorter now. He informed me that the girls like it longer!!

He LOVES having his picture taken...NOT!!

New school clothes. He's getting a little too fashionable! We do live in farm country after all!!!

Just made some yummy applesauce! Probably my favorite thing to preserve as it smells so good-tastes good too. Doesn't it look so cute in those stubby little jars?

Tyler's looking at buying a car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse. This one just dropped a thousand dollars. Problem is he only has 3000!!

Spent a great weekend with Ashleigh in Eastern Washington. Happened to be the Outdoor Quilt Show at the Buggy Barn, so of course I had to go!!!! Stopped at Waterville for a driving break and a visit to another quilt shop and ran into my neighbor Carol and my old neighbor Lisa, who were also going to the quilt show!


I love the setting of the Buggy Barn! The middle of nowhere, surrounded by wheat fields. So Pretty!

Spent the weekend at Lake Roosevelt with my brother and his family and had so much fun! The water there is so amazing, clear forever, warm and smells like fresh laundry! We had a lot of fun swimming, boating, sitting around the fire. Uploaded the wrong pics, so maybe later!!


Spent a night last week with my sister in law, Meagan. These are some paintings from her new fall series. I LOVE these! I will definitely be buying some of these prints! You can see some of her other paintings at http://www.serenescene.blogspot.com/.

I did do a little fall decorating. I couldn't help myself!!! I know it's going to get all dusty, but I don't care!!!!!




Love this little shopping cart and my old door!




A few quilts, and the hutch that doesn't belong there!

The front porch...and my shadow! Aren't mums glorious? So vibrant!



This cute little bird was singing to me as I was in the garden. Don't know what kind it is.

Lots of pumpkins in my garden this year. They are my favorite thing to grow!

Today, the first day of Autumn, is my 45th birthday! As my BFF ( or former BFF, jk) said, "I'm halfway to 90!!! thanks Lynda!! It's a gorgeous day and I hope to work in my yard and get things tidied up in the garden. Thanks for all of the greetings that I've already gotten today!

Happy Fall!

Holly