Friday, August 7, 2009

In a Pickle

I am the only person in my family that likes pickles and I only like dill pickles. The boys often tell me that pickles are cucumbers soaked in evil. Jim has often wondered why you would ruin a perfectly good cucumber by making it a pickle.

For years I have wanted to learn how to make my own pickles. Unfortunately, when it comes to the garden, Jim does the planting and I do the harvesting and bottling/freezing. It has been that way since we have been married. I suggest a pickling cucumber every year and every year I am denied. Well, this year, his brother that lives around the corner planted some pickling cukes and they couldn't keep up. I was given about 6 pounds of the little green vegetable and was on my way to learning something new (which I love!).

I started reading my USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning created by the USU extention. To my shock it takes 3-4 months to make a real dill pickle! They need to ferment in a cool, dry place before they can be processed. Luckily, they have a "Quick Dill Pickle" recipe. That's the one I am doing. I soaked the cukes in salt water over night. The I sliced them in three different ways: spears, chips and sandwich slicers. They are on the stove prcessing as I type this. I can't wait to see how they turn out! I will let you know...

2 comments:

Greg said...

I love homemade pickles. My mom has a funny story from when she was first married. Her younger brothers had a bunch of cukes that they wanted to use for pickles & my mom had NO IDEA you could make your own...she told them that "Pickles come from the store...You don't MAKE them."
She has since made many homemade pickles, but it still cracks me up.

Anonymous said...

We have decided to start calling people pickles as a code word for people who are "soaked in pure evil"