Whole Lot of Pickling Going On

Preserving, pickling, and jarring are in my blood! Every year my dad sets up shop in his kitchen and fills tons of jars with salsa, jellies, and jams. He knew before long I would catch the bug and follow in his footsteps. Being a newbie I wanted to start off slowly and with something easy, so pickling it was! We have a tentative date set in October for a little lesson on preserves. I might just take my video camera along for that. You guys would LOVE my dad. He’s hilarious and sweet as pie!



We purchased most of our ingredients at the Asian supermarket. You can’t beat the prices on their fresh herbs and peeled garlic. We bought tons of dill for next to nothing and big tubs of garlic for $1.00 each! A lot of times Asian supermarkets will buy from local farmers. Kent’s mom use to be one of those local farmers. She had the most amazing garden!



We made spicy dill pickles this time around. Each jar was filled with fresh garlic, pepper corns, fresh dill, and Thai chilies.




After our pickling brine was ready we got our handy-dandy funnels and went to town! I’m so happy Kent was willing to do this with me. If you decide to give pickling a try ask a friend or family member to join in……it’s much more fun when you have a partner to work with!




Once jars were filled with cucumbers, spices, and brine we settled them in a water bath to seal the leads.




    

Then gave them a kiss and a thumbs up for good luck!I have my fingers crossed that our first batch turns out good! I’ll let you know.

Things I learned:

*Pack your cucumbers and then pack them some more! You want these babies jammed in there.

*If you have an opening but do not have a cucumber that will fit just cut a cucumber in half or however you need to make it fit in your open spot.

*If this is your first time around and you plan to do several jars it can be a timely process so make sure you pick a day when you can hang around your house for several hours.

*We used jars with the regular sized mouth because well…..I’m cheap and didn’t want to pay the few extra bucks for the wide mouth jars. The ones we bought worked fine but the wide mouth jars would have made things a bit easier. If you plan to do larger pickles (not spears) I would go for the wide mouth jars.
  
*Do your research! Watch a few youtube clips if you're unfamiliar with pickling to help familiarize yourself with the process. Below is a clip that I thought was very helpful.

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