Also, I heard a lot of concerns about botulism from friends when I first took up canning and while I agree that botulism is a very serious concern, it's a very slim chance you'll get it. It's something like 200 cases reported every year and only 15% of those are canned good related; especially with high acid foods. So can away, I say!
Cucumbers! I've got em growing in my garden right now and they're blooming like crazy but no fruit yet. No worried though because I headed over to the Crescent City Farmer's Market today and picked up these babies. I also picked up some hot peppers because I like my pickles like I like all of my food...spicy.
The great thing about pickles is you can dress them up how you'd like. Lots of canning sites will tell you not to fool with recipes and while I agree in most cases, I'm not worried about fooling with pickles. They're soaked in vinegar, which is high acid, and I keep my base the same. I just throw is some random stuff here in there. That's how I came up with my spicy ass pickles, that Nate and I love.
As you can see I have a couple different varieties going. There are my spicy pickles with peppers on the bottom, layered with white onions, fresh dill sprigs, cucumber rounds, sea salt, and some cayenne pepper. I'm trying a garlic version too, with about a whole head of garlic in each, dill seeds, onions, dill sprigs, sea salt, and of course cucumber rounds. You can make just one jar if you'd like and stick in in the fridge which will keep your pickles crunchier, but if you're making a whole bunch that you want to keep hidden away you'll have to process your jars in a hot water bath.
They still look so pretty and green before they go in. The water bath will cook them a bit but they still have a great crunch to them and then you'll have a cabinet full of yummy pickles to munch on.
PICKLES:
12-15 baby cucumbers sliced length wise
1 onion (white) chopped fine
1 tablespoon of salt
2 teaspoons of celery seeds
3/4 of a cup of sugar
1/2 cup of white vinegar
That's the original recipe I use. It's from my days in Pre-K at St. Mark's. I did five quarts and two pints today. In my sterilized jars, I added all of my ingredients but the vinegar and sugar. In a large, non reactive, pot or dutch oven, I heated up 7 cups of vinegar and 4 pounds of sugar. Once the sugar had almost completely dissolved into the vinegar, if not all the way, I poured it over everything else that was already in my jars; making sure I left at least 1/4 inch of space at the head of the jar.
Hot water bath process based on the size of your jars and you're altitude. In my case, I did it for about 25 minutes. They all sealed.
