Image Map

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Whole Lot of Pickling Going On

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
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!


OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
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!


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



OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
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!



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




OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA              OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
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.

I'm linking up with:
The Thrifty Home

8 comments:

  1. Wow! Looks like yall had a lot of fun and made a lot of pickles! Can't wait to hear how they turned out

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for posting this. We planted cucumbers this year in our garden and WOW, do we have tons of them. I'm going to try to make pickles, now that I've watched that video!

    I'll let you know how they turn out!

    Hugz,
    Michele

    ReplyDelete
  3. GREAT! I am going to save this for my next summers adventure. I grow cukes, and next summer plan to do more and pickle them!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well don't you look adorable in those pictures - pickles and all!
    xoxo,
    Kim

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm going to can jalapenos this weekend! Wish me luck! Your pickles look really good. I like the idea of spicy dills. Btw, you are absolutely beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Kendra! My name is Genn and I just found your blog through my Mom's (Kris @ Simplify). Love your curly big hair. I'm a hairdresser and can't have my own hair too big- ever. :) The pickling cukes looks fun. My family has definitely enjoyed the harvest that my Moms garden has been producing this summer.

    Nice to meet you in blogland! I'll be back.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Fun, fun! My parents had a huge garden, and I used to dread the preserving season since the bulk of it usually fell on me. Living in town and not being able to have a garden now though, I miss those days! :)

    ReplyDelete

I LOVE comments and read them all so knock yourself out! If you have a specific question, feel free to
e-mail me by using my e-mail link in the side bar. I would love to hear from you :o)