Bread & Butter Pickles

With the heavy rain and wind today, it was a good day to stay inside and make pickles.  I'll always remember my grandmother's Bread & Butter Pickles, one of my favorites from her canning cellar.  We're fortunate to have a good crop of cucumbers (Marketmore 76) this year and I was able to harvest 16 for her recipe which calls for 15 cups of sliced cukes, making 5-6 pint jars of pickles.

Marketmore 76 cucumber variety climbing a trellis

Wash and scrub the cucumbers until they are absolutely clean.  

Then, slice the cucumbers into about 1/4" slices, leaving the skin on. Combine with 1/4" sliced medium sized onions (I used Vadalia, since they're mild) in a large bowl or pan, together with 1/4 cup canning salt and about 6 cups of ice cubes.  Mix up the ingredients real well to coat the cucumber and onion slices and refrigerate for about 3 hours.

After 3 hours, discard the ice cubes and rinse the cucumber/onion mixture in a colandar to remove all of the salt.  Drain well.

In a large pan combine 2-1/2 cups cider vinegar, 2-1/2 cups sugar, 1 tablespoon mustard seeds, 1 teaspoon celery seeds and 1/2 teaspoon turmeric.  Bring to a boil until the sugar dissolves.  To this mixture, add the cucumber/onion slices and combine well.  Bring to a boil and remove pan from heat.

With a slotted spoon, fill hot, sterilized pint jars with cucumber/onion mixture. After all jars are filled, add the vinegar/sugar/spice mixture to the filled jars, leaving about 1/4" headspace in each jar.

Process the jars in a hot water bath canner for 15 minutes to seal.

ENJOY!

Garden Harvest

Today is a beautiful July 17th, sunny and 75 degrees. A perfect day.  We're doing some weeding and harvesting, along with just enjoying the garden.

"On Deck" variety of sweet corn

Close up of ear

Tiger Swallowtail

"Elf" variety of sunflower

Nice, big 5" bloom on "Elf" sunflowers

The "Elf" variety only grows about 2' tall

Patch of Zinnias in vegetable garden

Cantaloupe on trellis

Tiny cantaloupes beginning to form.

Brussels Sprouts forming on stem between leaves.

Side shoots of brocolli that form
after cutting main head.

Today's harvest

Have a great day!

Red Raspberry Jelly

The red raspberry crop is a good one this year, with enough berries to make jelly.  In other years, I left the seeds in the jam, but this year I've strained them and I like the jelly better without the seeds.

After picking and rinsing the berries, I boiled them in a pot for about 5 minutes, then used a regular kitchen strainer to press out the juice, leaving the seeds in the strainer.  I needed about 3 quarts of berries to make 4 cups of juice, a box of pectin, 5-1/2 cups of sugar and 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice and ended up with 7 cups of jelly.