Pickles - Kind of a big dill around here!
It’s pickling season! Are you in a pickle trying to keep up with your cucumber harvest?
Pickles have been around for thousands of years! Throughout history pickling was a necessity for preserving food for long periods of time. You can pickle just about any vegetable or fruit but we are crazy for cucumbers! Our garden is full of them!
Can you spot Piper Girl?
Pickles are a family favourite around here! We even have an ongoing friendly competition between us…
Lynne’s Blue Ribbon Canned Pickles VS Don’s Naturally Fermented Pickles :)
Don’s Naturally Fermented Pickles:
For naturally fermented dill pickles, you’ll need a fermenting crock. See Don’s below, ours is from Amazon but there are plenty of options to purchase second hand as well.
Once you’ve found a crock - scrub your cucumbers, place in the crock, make a “brine” in a saucepan on the stove.
Don’s fermenting crock (find on Amazon, secondhand, or grandma's pantry)!
The “brine” can be made by dissolving 5 Tbsp pickling salt in 8 cups of water - bring to just under a boil to dissolve the salt. Cover the cucumbers in your crock with the brine. Add in dill, 6 peeled garlic cloves, peppercorns, pickling spice and a couple of bay leaves. Leave 1-2” of headspace in the crock. Use the clay weight that is part of your fermenting crock to hold the pickles down in the liquid and put the cover on. This stays on your counter at room temperature now for 1-2wks. You may hear it gurgle from time to time - that’s nature at work fermenting the cucumbers! It will smell amazing! After two weeks, place the pickles and liquid in a jar and then keep refrigerated. Check out our favourite recipe here.
Tip from Don: cut just the bottom tip off where the blossom was, and you’ll have crispier pickles!
Don transferring the fermented pickles into jars to refrigerate and enjoy!
Lynne’s Blue Ribbon Canned Pickles:
My pickle recipe is a traditional canning recipe - try adding jalapeno peppers to make spicy pickles!
If you’re a pickle master and have been growing and canning cucumbers since you can remember, you know what to expect. For those of you who are new to canning, welcome! It can be a very frustrating but a VERY rewarding experience. There are too many steps for me list, but my go-to recipe from food.com has never failed me. I’ve gotten into the habit of always organizing my workspace while the canning pot comes to a boil. Running around the house trying to find more lids is the last thing you want to when the jars are ready to seal.
Pickling station, organized and ready to pickle!
Another tip: keep a sharpie handy and write the year on your jarring lid - the lids are one-time-use only anyway. Canned goods will be at their peak for max 2yrs.
While pickles are packed with health benefits like probiotics and vitamins, they aren’t really that photogenic, but we still love them!
Anyone want to share their favourite pickle recipe? Thinking we should branch out - maybe try Deep Fried Pickles!?
