Pickles!

[hippywife]

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Did you use cukes or kirbys?

I love the smaller kirbys.

Is that a bottle of Costco balsamic I see? :)

[hippywife]

2. I used what

Seeds of Change just calls a Northern Pickling Cuke but it really looks for all intents and purposes like a Kirby. Some of them got a little big, tho, but I wasn't wasting them! I used them in the dills.

That is a bottle of Carlini Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Aldi's. We don't have Costcos here.

We have 7 weeks to wait in order to eat the garlic dills. The sweet ones are zesties with a little red pepper flake. Those we can eat very soon. :9

[kestrel91316]

15. You can use overgrown cukes in pickle relish.

[eleny]

3. They look great!!!

Do you make the sour pickles all the way sour or 1/2 sours? I like both kinds. Oh yum!

I've never made pickles before but want to try this summer. Do they need a water bath?

[hippywife]

4. Beats me! LOL

I've never made them before, either. I just followed these recipes, as close as I follow any recipe and I'm hoping for the best. I had to make adjustments because I didn't have as many cukes as they called for.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Dill-Pickles/Detail.aspx

And I did put this one through a water bath even tho the recipe doesn't call for one. Who can eat that many pickles before they go bad?:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bread-and-Butter-Pickles-II/Detail.aspx?prop31=3

Thanx, eleny! :hi: :hug:

[Tab]

5. Last year I was looking at this (making pickles)

Damn, I love a good pickle.

Apparently there are two techniques - I'll have to refer back to be sure, but - I remember there's the "fermented" technique (not sure that's the proper term) that takes weeks to cure, which seems to be what you're doing here, and there's an overnight technique, more or less, which is some kind of water and spice technique. I'll have to look them up again, because it's something I'd really like to do.

I know you can add all kinds of spices for all kinds of flavors, but I was always curious what went into the "bread and butter" flavored ones, which I like a lot in slices (not so much spears). I assume it involves a goodly amount of sugar.

I also suspect the long-term prep will have a superior, more developed flavor, than the quick water prep.

Since you made these, though, and showed them, you're under a C&B obligation to describe how you made them, at least if anyone asks - which I am officially doing.

How'dja do what you did?

[hippywife]

6. See post# 4

just above yours. I did post the recipes I used. :D

[mtnester]

7. My favorite pickles are bread and butter

i love them

sigh



(not mine, but they looked the prettiest)

[hippywife]

8. They're my favorite, too. n/t

[mtnester]

9. I can sit and make a meal of them

my mothers bread and butter pickles, when I was little, used to be a really odd shade of blue...does that ring anyone else's bell?

[hippywife]

10. Never seen that one before.

It might have had to do with the kind of cukes she used, mayeb? I know it's the tumeric that makes them look almost flourescent green/yellow.

[mtnester]

11. All I know, is all those glass jars full of things

glittered like jewels in the basement canning room....

I need a summer kitchen!

[hippywife]

12. Was it the light

in the basement, maybe, or did they look blue when they were out of the jar, too? If so, I'm thinking it had to be the variety of cukes she was using.

Food is so evocative of good childhood memories. Well, most of the time. Or almost never if you're Warpy. ;)

[mtnester]

13. They were a unique blue out of the jar too

I wonder if it was some dumb idea that home ec taught her (blue dye?) We are talking the early -mid 60's...or maybe it was our well water? It really is miniscent of the color the pond water gets when my father puts copper sulfite in to fight the nitrate overflow from the farm fields.

[Callalily]

14. Fabulous! This is my

first year without a garden, so no canning, no freezing for me anymore.

I used to can a ton of pickles. Bread and Butter, and ones called (now don't laugh) Best Pickles in the World, and truly they are!. Lots of garlic and jalapeño. Those I truly miss!

[kestrel91316]

16. Nothing wrong with going to the store or farmer's market

and buying stuff to can. That's what I do now, on a fairly small scale.

I bought jalapenos last week and made Jalapenos en Escabeche. They look lovely in their jars. Make great gifts, too. Plum sauce is next, and probably pickled green beans.

Canning is way too much fun to give up just because you don't have a garden!