MontyJ
Deeply Rooted
If you have been following this thread, you know that Dew and Baymule conspired against me to make these pickles.
Now, Im not much for sweet pickles, but I will give Dew whatever she wants, if at all possible. Well, the Picklebush cucumbers I planted didnt produce worth a crap. I barely managed to get 12 pints of dill spears canned before the plants just gave up and died. Now, mind you, I didnt get 12 pints all at once, and I had 9 cucumber plants!
Anyway, even if I could get enough cucumbers, I couldnt find pickling lime anywhere.
Im not going to go into all the details of their sneaky little plot. You can read all about it in the thread linked above. It is pretty funny thoughand resulted in this:
After a trip to Rogers flea market, an hour away, I came home with a full bushel of very nice cucumbers. They were selling for $10/half-bushel, so I bought two:
Using the fact that Baymule got 20 pints and 4 quarts from her recipe, I sliced and measured out 28 pints, which turned out to be exactly bushel:
I added the water and lime, then weighted them down with a plate to soak overnight:
So, yesterday morning I got up early, had coffee and caught up on TEG. Then out to the garden to pick the corn and get it put away. Corn goes very fast and by 10:30 I was done. But, I still had a half-bushel of cucumbers chilling out in the fridge. What to do??? Make more dill pickles!!
I have tried several times to make dill slices, but each time, they come out mushy. I found a new recipe and decided to give it a try. The curious thing is, the recipe has been right there in my Blue Book all along, but I have never tried it, dont know why, just never saw it.
So, out to the herb garden I went and cut all the dill I had left. I dont think dill likes the new herb garden because it just didnt grow as well as it usually does, but it was enough for this adventure.
After more slicing and measuring, I had some jars ready for the canner:
Once those came out, I made another batch of spears. Since I still had cucumbers left, Dew talked me into making another batch of dill slices (yes, that was Dews idea). So, more slicing and such. This time, something went very wrong. As I was lowering the jars into the water bath, I heard three distinct pops. I know that sound, anyone who cans does. Its the sound of the bottoms blowing off the jars. I lifted the rack back out and sure enough, two jars had failed. I carefully examined the remaining five jars and they were still OK. The jars were very hot after just being filled with boiling water, so there was no reason for them to break like that. I do have a theory though. The jars I used for that batch were returned to me, just yesterday, from a friend. Dew brought them home in a bag. To my dismay, there were tea stains inside the jars. They were using my canning jars as tea glasses!
The constant banging around in dishwater, plus being picked up and sat down on everything from coffee tables to concrete porches could have weakened the jars. It seems funny to me that I have already used a couple of hundred quart jars this season and had only one failure up until now (which is a rarity). Then to have two fail out of seven? Highly unlikely.
Sorry, got off on a rant therewhere was Ioh yesmore dill slices.
I got the 5 remaining jars water bathed and set them out to cool:
By this time, Dews pickles had been soaking for over 18 hours. I know the recipe calls for a 24-hour soak, but the day was getting late and I still had to light the grill and cook dinner, so I started them a little early.
This is getting long, and I still have to cut the grass today, so lets cut to the chase. Heres the result of a simple request for Thai bean seeds
:
Now, Im not much for sweet pickles, but I will give Dew whatever she wants, if at all possible. Well, the Picklebush cucumbers I planted didnt produce worth a crap. I barely managed to get 12 pints of dill spears canned before the plants just gave up and died. Now, mind you, I didnt get 12 pints all at once, and I had 9 cucumber plants!
Anyway, even if I could get enough cucumbers, I couldnt find pickling lime anywhere.
Im not going to go into all the details of their sneaky little plot. You can read all about it in the thread linked above. It is pretty funny thoughand resulted in this:
After a trip to Rogers flea market, an hour away, I came home with a full bushel of very nice cucumbers. They were selling for $10/half-bushel, so I bought two:
Using the fact that Baymule got 20 pints and 4 quarts from her recipe, I sliced and measured out 28 pints, which turned out to be exactly bushel:
I added the water and lime, then weighted them down with a plate to soak overnight:
So, yesterday morning I got up early, had coffee and caught up on TEG. Then out to the garden to pick the corn and get it put away. Corn goes very fast and by 10:30 I was done. But, I still had a half-bushel of cucumbers chilling out in the fridge. What to do??? Make more dill pickles!!
I have tried several times to make dill slices, but each time, they come out mushy. I found a new recipe and decided to give it a try. The curious thing is, the recipe has been right there in my Blue Book all along, but I have never tried it, dont know why, just never saw it.
So, out to the herb garden I went and cut all the dill I had left. I dont think dill likes the new herb garden because it just didnt grow as well as it usually does, but it was enough for this adventure.
After more slicing and measuring, I had some jars ready for the canner:
Once those came out, I made another batch of spears. Since I still had cucumbers left, Dew talked me into making another batch of dill slices (yes, that was Dews idea). So, more slicing and such. This time, something went very wrong. As I was lowering the jars into the water bath, I heard three distinct pops. I know that sound, anyone who cans does. Its the sound of the bottoms blowing off the jars. I lifted the rack back out and sure enough, two jars had failed. I carefully examined the remaining five jars and they were still OK. The jars were very hot after just being filled with boiling water, so there was no reason for them to break like that. I do have a theory though. The jars I used for that batch were returned to me, just yesterday, from a friend. Dew brought them home in a bag. To my dismay, there were tea stains inside the jars. They were using my canning jars as tea glasses!
The constant banging around in dishwater, plus being picked up and sat down on everything from coffee tables to concrete porches could have weakened the jars. It seems funny to me that I have already used a couple of hundred quart jars this season and had only one failure up until now (which is a rarity). Then to have two fail out of seven? Highly unlikely.
Sorry, got off on a rant therewhere was Ioh yesmore dill slices.
I got the 5 remaining jars water bathed and set them out to cool:
By this time, Dews pickles had been soaking for over 18 hours. I know the recipe calls for a 24-hour soak, but the day was getting late and I still had to light the grill and cook dinner, so I started them a little early.
This is getting long, and I still have to cut the grass today, so lets cut to the chase. Heres the result of a simple request for Thai bean seeds
:
