Pickles!
Despite the fact that the cucumber plants in my garden failed miserably this year (I'd like to thank my groundhog buddies for that), we've been talking about learning how to do pickling for quite a while. James picked up a nice bunch of cucumbers from the farm stand, and last Wednesday, I tried my hand at pickling.
The girls and I took a trip to Wal-Mart (scary!) and picked up our supplies. I was happy to discover that for $10 they have a starter kit which has 3 jars (all I needed for the cukes I had) and the basket to dunk your goods in the hot water.
We sliced up all the cucumbers and tried not to eat them all while working on our project. Made the pickling liquid using a mix and vinegar. I used red wine vinegar because I forgot to buy white at the store. Oooops.
Our goodies took a little bath in boiling water. 2 of the jars sealed and the other one didn't. I think it was my fault because I didn't make enough pickling liquid & I tried to cheat by dumping extra vinegar in the last batch. The extra vinegar wasn't hot and that was the jar that didn't seal. No worries, you can eat the un-sealed jar within 2 weeks as long as you put it directly in the fridge!
These are my pickles right after sealing the cans. The two that sealed are in my pantry, and the other one went right into the fridge. They can be eaten after 24 hours, so Thursday after work, we busted into them. I was worried about the red wine vinegar, but they were tasty!! I'm thinking I'd like to conquer home made salsa next!!
The girls and I took a trip to Wal-Mart (scary!) and picked up our supplies. I was happy to discover that for $10 they have a starter kit which has 3 jars (all I needed for the cukes I had) and the basket to dunk your goods in the hot water.
We sliced up all the cucumbers and tried not to eat them all while working on our project. Made the pickling liquid using a mix and vinegar. I used red wine vinegar because I forgot to buy white at the store. Oooops.
Our goodies took a little bath in boiling water. 2 of the jars sealed and the other one didn't. I think it was my fault because I didn't make enough pickling liquid & I tried to cheat by dumping extra vinegar in the last batch. The extra vinegar wasn't hot and that was the jar that didn't seal. No worries, you can eat the un-sealed jar within 2 weeks as long as you put it directly in the fridge!
These are my pickles right after sealing the cans. The two that sealed are in my pantry, and the other one went right into the fridge. They can be eaten after 24 hours, so Thursday after work, we busted into them. I was worried about the red wine vinegar, but they were tasty!! I'm thinking I'd like to conquer home made salsa next!!