Friday, June 29, 2012

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard

I'm a day behind this week!  The main thing happening in my kitchen this week was making the first batch of pickles:


I learned how to water bath can last year, so I had to refresh myself on what to do since it has been awhile.  The dill pickles I make are very simple- they are the Ball dill pickle mix.  I have a recipe book called So Easy to Preserve that has many canning recipes including several for pickles.  However, last year when I was preparing for my first batch of pickles and was standing in the store checkout line with jars, the woman behind me started talking about making pickles.  She said she's tried countless recipes including grandma's recipe and by far the best and crispiest are the Ball dill pickle mix.  Since I knew nothing about canning, I thought I would give it a try.

Last year the cucumbers had a prolific year and I had far more pickles than I could ever eat, so I gave out pickles to lots of friends and family.  Everyone loved the pickles and are already asking about them this year, so now I feel that I need to stick to the same recipe.  I did make a batch of sweet gherkins last year from the So Easy to Preserve book and they are my favorites.  However, they require five days of soaking and changing the liquid and I didn't have the motivation for that, but hopefully sometime this summer I will make them.  Unfortunately the cucumbers do not seem to be thriving this year.  I've started some more seeds, but it's going to be awhile before they mature. 

That's what has been cooking in my kitchen.  If you want to peak into other kitchens and see what others are cooking, head over to Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard at the Gardener of Eden.

9 comments:

  1. It will be awhile before there is any pickle making around here. I'm going to have to check out that gherkin recipe. I seem to have a hard time with my gherkins. They always shrivel up. Maybe a simpler recipe will work out and won't take me 3 days to make!

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    1. I think this one was 4 or 5 days, so I didn't find it simple. The dill ones were much crisper, but I liked the taste of the gherkins and I didn't notice shriveling.

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  2. I can't wait for my cukes to produce so I can make some pickles. Last year my favorite was the bread and butter pickles.

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    1. I haven't tried making bread and butter pickles yet. I hope my cucumbers hang on for a bit longer so I can make more pickles!

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  3. I just canned my first can of anything, ever, last night! Dilly beans :) I would love to hear about any more canning adventures.

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    1. Hooray!! Congrats :) I was completely intimidated by canning, so I took a class and found that it wasn't so difficult after all. The next hurdle is learning how to pressure can. However, I find pressure canners scary!

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  4. We lost half our cucumber plants to some creature. Hopefully we'll get a few cukes for pickling. Yours look delicious!

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    1. Oh no! My cucumbers are dying back for some unknown reason. The lemon cucumbers seem to be fairing better than the Persian cucumbers. I've never pickled the lemon cucumbers, but I bet they'd make good pickle slices.

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  5. I like brad and butters pickles best and we are currently down to our 2nd last jar which is very worrying as its months before I'm likely to be able to make any more...sniff...

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