12 Jars

I'm back from vacation and I'm battling post-vacation depression but I am taking a few steps to help...drinking heavily and eating pickles.

I made my second batch of homemade pickles the week before I headed down to North Carolina for a vacation in the mountains and I knew they would be ready by the time I got back. My first attempt earlier this summer was a success but I wanted to tweak my recipe just a little. This time around my goal was to use less salt and more garlic and dill. My trip to the farmer's market for this round of pickling supplies was a little different than the last. For example, the first time I bought a bunch of dill at the market, it was the size of a homemade witch's broom, the second time I bought a bunch of dill (from the same vendor) it was the size of an elaborate bloody mary garnish...I should have gotten more but I didn't and then I bought just one head of garlic and discovered about 8 cloves...sigh, I was a little short on the very ingredients that I had hoped to "crank up" in my recipe (see, I AM depressed... I can't come up with another description besides "crank up").

But I set about pickling anyhow and I found that this time around I really felt comfortable and just sort of "winged" it (the first time I stared at the recipe for hours the night before and checked it a hundred times during the process).


I used a recipe for 8lbs of cucumbers but I had way more (13-15 lbs), I used less salt than was called for, and I just eyeballed the mustard seeds and used whatever looked good for the dill, garlic and peppers.





Here's more or less what I used:

2 quarts of water (I used bottled water)
1 1/2 quarts of distilled white vinegar
3/4 cups of pickling or sea salt
Bring the water, salt and vinegar to a boil, stirring to make sure your salt dissovles. I also placed a hot pepper sliced down the middle in the pot to steep in the vinegar ( a little tip courtesy of Jennifer Biggs from Whining and Dining).
In each jar: I sprinkled a teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds
several sprigs of fresh dill
1 clove of garlic
1-2 fresh hot peppers
13-15 pounds of kirby cucumbers



After packing the jars with the washed and dried cucumbers I sprinkled some crushed red pepper on top and packed in a few more dill sprigs. I made 2 jars of whole pickles but I mostly sliced the cucumbers into spears and rings-you can fit alot more pickles into fewer jars this way.


The 12 jars I made before leaving have already dwindled in number...they are AMAZINGLY GOOD. If left unchecked I KNOW I could eat a jar a day because so far I, umm, have...but here's what I've figured out... I CAN eat a jar a day if I want to, because I can make MORE. I CAN MAKE MORE!!!

I am the supplier, the dealer AND the junkie...ooooh and I feel just like Jesus' son!