The Big Cuke Dip.

July 21- 24, 2011

Our first adventure with canning this year: Pickles and Banana Peppers.

This story is not complete without starting it off with the quick run to the Wal-Mart (boo hiss). I am sure you can only image what comes of a quick, after 6pm run to this fine establishment (wipe the sarcasm from your screen now).

Well, let me give you a quick run down on what went down at Wal-Mart.  Found some Ball canning jars in various sizes, no problem.  Hopes arise.  Wander aimlessly throughout toys, sporting goods, and hardware looking for ONE Wal-Mart employee to check about a bucket (we needed another one).  No luck.  Dashed hopes and dreams that Wal-Mart MIGHT not be that bad.  Continue walking on to Electronics and find a manager- only to have him continue to walk away, sending a team member over to help instead.  What a winner.  Outcome after 15 minutes...no buckets, even though they had 10 on-hand.  We were told "they are probably in a bin in the back, not scanned."  Such an honorable answer.

Stopped at Home Depot: bucket and lid found without issue.  Home Depot saved my retail beliefs.

By this time it is ridiculously past Isabella's bedtime- Thanks Wal-Mart.  We feed her a little more and off to bed she goes.

Breath.

Can you tell he is excited?

Spread out all of the loot from the garden today (pickin' in the 100+ heat is for the birds.  Heck, the aforementioned birds weren't even around).  Decide to get started at 10, guess it is better than 11, right?

Cuke Lime Bath

35 minutes later, Matt and I are finished cutting the cucumbers.  Splish, splash, they are taking a Lime Bath!

We are letting the cukes bask in the lime glory all night, then rinse them off 3 times (yep, the recipe says 3) and will begin working up the recipe from the back Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime (hey, it's worth a shot, right?  We have plenty more in the garden if this doesn't taste good!)

Not opaque, as one would expect.

July 22, 2011

Okay, now the Cukes are taking a spicey bath.  Yum.  They smell like fall, oddly enough.  I like the smell of fall.

They can soak in this bath from 5 hours to overnight.  I am doing overnight- all that spicey goodness needs to be soaked up by those lovely Cukes.

July 23-24, 2011

Makin' Progress.

Okay, so I am kinda over the long process.  I like results, and yes, I will admit two things here: 1.  The pickling process is easy and 2.  I can see results each time I open the bucket.

Now comes the fun part.  Cooking the pickles in their spicey bath and really canning them (in the boiling water canner).  Hopefully this will prove to be free entertainment for both Matt and me.

I have determined, as I freakishly organize all of my pots and pans that I need BIGGER pots to accomplish this in a much more time efficient way.  Note:  insert catchy phrase, such as GO BIG OR GO HOME.  Yep, with canning I have figured you need to go big or go home with your cooking pots.  I already have the big boiling water canner and the pressure cooker.  I am talking the prep pots.

You need a pot for the flat lids, and the food you are cooking, and the "heat the jars" pot, and the canner itself, and the blah, blah blah blah,....okay you get the point.  All stove eyes are accounted for in a process like this.

The other thing about canning with smaller pots is how many times you have to do the same process.  For instance, on the pickles, I will have to do the same process 5 times to can up the 5 gallon bucket of pickles we made.

Here is what the process looks like for the pickles we made:
Cook pickles in syrup for 35 minutes
While cooking pickles, warm the jars-- only problem: I can only fit 4 pint jars in a pot (not a lot when you think about a 5 gallon bucket...)
Pack each jar with the pickles, seal and set next to canner
Accumulate 3 jars (all my particular canning basket holds) and put in canner.  Process for 10 minutes and remove.

So you see....as this process continues, each round averages about an hour, by the time you cook the pickles, pack the jars, warm more jars, can the jars, blah, blah, blah....this is about the time my attention span says, "Ciao, dahlin" and I am ready to go do something else.

I rest my case.  Everyone thinking about canning should have big pots to do this process with, or please, for the love of all things canned, share your small pot secret with me so I don't have to repeatedly gouge my eyes out with Isabella's baby spoon while waiting on the process to start over again.

Okay, yeah, that was harsh.  Sorry folks, sometimes things get a little funny around our house- we had quite the chuckle at the thought of someone actually doing that to themselves, all over canning pickles.  bahahaha okay, laughing again.  Maybe it is the fact we are still canning at 2:45 in the morning?  I don't know, you decide.

Little Banana Pepper Batch

Once we finished the pickles, we did a batch of banana peppers.  yum.

The banana pepper batch yielded 10 jars.

The pickle batch yielded 22 jars. 

We will officially be eating pickles until our bodies shrivel up like a pickle.  If, by chance, World War III were to erupt, have no fear, we have plenty of rations for friends and family.  We will survive by golly.

Okay, funnies aside, here is our end result.  Not bad for one round from the fruits of our labor! :)

Jars, Jars and more Jars

If you need free entertainment, just come to our house and watch us can- loads of laughs, guaranteed.

Be Blessed.