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I finally tried pickling!  I started off with dill pickles because they are pretty easy to make – well the recipe looked easy enough.  I did have help for my first time, which I am very thankful for!  But I will be trying it again on my own as I still have quite a few cucumbers left.  My garden went crazy with producing cukes this year!

My Mom doesn’t make dill pickles because she says they don’t turn out for her.  She makes mustard (my fav homemade pickle) and relish (not a fav… but my Mom knows that).  I grew up watching her make pickles.  The cutting of the cucumbers, the soaking of the cucumbers in the salt, the smell of onions, the smell of mustard, the cooking, the whole house smelling like onion and mustard, the bottling, listening for the pop of them being sealed, and later the eating of the pickles!  Just so you know, the best meal to eat mustard pickles is with potato scollops (scalloped potatoes to my ON friends) and ham.  Mmmm… delicious.  Well, since my Mom doesn’t make dill pickles and she makes mustard we are going to do an exchange.  That’s exciting.  I already got some mustard pickles from my sister, so I will have plenty for the winter!

The Recipe

  1. Wash and cut off flower end of
    • 24 (3 to 4-inch) cucumbers – OR – cut cucumbers in have and then into quarter length slices – OR – cut into “chip” rounds.
  2. Cover with ice water and let stand for 2 hours
  3. To each hot sterilized quart sealer, add
    • 1 head of dill
    • 1/2 sweet red pepper, sliced (I omitted this)
    • 2 cloves garlic, sliced (mine were fresh from my garden, which are bigger than store bought so I only put 1)
    • 1 tsp pickling spice
    • 1/8 tsp (pinch) of alum (per small jar)
  4. Bring to a boil
    • 1 C white vinegar
    • 2 C water
    • 1/4 C coarse salt
  5. Pack cucumbers into prepared jars.  Fill jars with hot vinegar mixture.  Seal.
  6. Makes 2 quarts

Tips:

  • wash all bottles and lids in warm soapy water and rinse and then
  • sterilize bottoles in boiling water (10 min for small bottles and 20 min for large bottles)
  • sterilize lids for 5 min in boiling water
  • Take out hot jars and prepare right away and put lid on right away
  • cover cucumbers so the are just covered with liquid – make sure there is some space between liquid and lid
  • wait for jar to pop – that means the jar sealed
  • try and use freshly picked cucumbers
  • you can use dill weed instead of a head of dill (I couldn’t find fresh head of dill) We used 1 tsp for small jar and 2 for large jar
  • 1/8 tsp of alum for small jar and 1/4 tsp for large jar

What’s your favourite kind of pickles?