Icicle Pickles

As the cucumbers continued to thrive in my garden through August, I continued to build on my pickle making resume, trying, again for the first time, Icicle Pickles.  These pickles always have and probably always will remind me of my Grandma.  Mom never really made Icicle Pickles, but Grandma always did  (and still does, despite the fact that she is starting to have memory issues).  Every time there was a family dinner of any kind at Papa and Grandma's house, you could count on their being a big dish of Icicle Pickles on the table.

I hadn't really thought about making Icicle Pickles because I didn't really know anything about the process, except that they took days, possibly even weeks to make.  And the only reason I knew this much was because I remembered Grandma sending us to the basement day after day with a big wooden spoon to stir the icicle pickles in the crock.  So, I hadn't even entertained the thought of icicle pickles because I like things with immediate results and I didn't have a crock to make them in.  Then one day, my friend, Renelle, mentioned on Facebook that she'd spent the afternoon bottling Icicle Pickles with her mom and I suddenly had an urge to make some.  After a few comments back and forth on Facebook, I had her mother's recipe in my inbox and had found out that my mother-in-law had a crock that I could use!

On August 31st, I started my first ever batch of Icicle Pickles.  And yesterday, September 13th, I bottled them.  Yes, folks, it take 14 days to make a batch of these pickles!  Check your calendar before you start and make sure you have the time to commit to this process!  And if you have never had Icicle Pickles, don't let the 14 days scare you away.  They are a lovely sweet, pickle, well worth the time and effort they require!

24 cups of cucumbers, cut with seeds removed - Day 1

Cucumbers after 14 days of "pickling" . . . ready to be bottled.

Finished Product

As will most of my recent forays in domesticity, I modified the recipe to suit my needs, mostly because my crock wasn't big enough to hold as many cucumbers as the recipe called for.  Here is my modified version, with the original amounts in brackets.

Icicle Pickles

24 cups cucumber, cut with seeds removed (2 gallons - 32 cups)

2 cups coarse salt

1 tbsp alum

Syrup:

5 cups vinegar (2 quarts - 8 cups)

8 cups sugar (14 cups)

4 tbsp pickling spice

Instructions:

Day 1:  Cut cucumbers, remove seeds.  Place in crock, cover with 2 cups coarse salt.  Add boiling water to cover cucumbers.  Cover crock.

Day 2: Stir.

Day 3: Stir.

Day 4: Stir.

Day 5: Stir.

Day 6: Stir.

Day 7: Stir.

Day 8: Drain liquid off.  Cover with fresh boiling water for 24 hours.

Day 9: Drain liquid off.  Add 1 tsp alum.  Cover with fresh boiling water for 24 hours.

Day 10:  Mix syrup and bring to a boil.  Drain pickles and cover with boiling syruup.

Day 11: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 12: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 13: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil and pour back over pickles.

Day 14: Drain syrup off, into a pot, boil.  Put pickles into jars and fill with boiling syrup.  Close bottles and can for 15 minutes.

Thanks to Mrs. Oulette for her recipe!

Pickled Beets

I was at it again today!  This time, making pickled beets.  Again, I searched the internet and created my own recipe based on bits and pieces of the recipes that I found!

Beets . . . fresh from the garden, clean and ready to cook . . . 

Boiling . . . 

Cooked, cooling and waiting to be peeled . . . 

Peeled . . . 

Sliced . . . 

Pickling spices . . . this is an infant Nibbler* and is so much easier to use for spices that need to be removed than fumbling with cheese cloth and sting!  I found this tip on the internet, but can't find it again to give credit, but it works really well!

Beet slices in brine.

Finished product . . . 5 pints of pickled beets.

Pickled Beets

4 quarts of beets

1 1/2 cups vinegar

3 cups water

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 tbsp mixed pickling spices

Clean and boil beets.

Let cool.

Peel and slice/cut as desired.  Place in large saucepan.

Mix vinegar, water and sugar, pour over beets.

Put pickling spices in cheese cloth pouch or infant Nibbler so that they can be removed.

Boil for 10 minutes.

Pack in hot jars.

Can for 15 minutes in boiling water.

Bread And Butter Pickles

Today's foray into domesticity (if that is even a word, but I like the way it sounds, so I'm going to say that it is!) was Bread and Butter Pickles.  Again, I have help Mom and probably grandma make these many time, years ago, but this was the first time I've attempted it on my own.  I searched the internet for a recipe and found many.  Most of which had the basics that I remembered and some had things in them that I knew were never in the ones Mom made.  So, I pulled together the basics from a few recipes and came up with one of my own.  (See end of post for recipe.)

Sliced cucumber and onion sitting for 3 hours with salt and ice.

Seasonings used, with sugar and vinegar to create the brine.

Bread and Butter Pickle Brine.

Cucumber and onion cooking in brine.

Finished product . . . 4 quarts of Bread and Butter Pickles.

Bread and Butter Pickles

4 quarts cucumbers

6 medium onions 

2 peppers (optional)

1/3 cup pickling salt

ice

Slice and layer in container with salt and ice in each layer.

Let sit for 3 hours.

4 cups sugar

3 cups vinegar

1 1/2 tsp tumeric

1 1/2 tsp celery seed

2 tbsp mustard seed

Mix together in a large pot and heat to boiling.

Drain cucumbers and remove ice but DO NOT rinse.

Add to brine and bring to boil.

Cook for 5 minutes.

Ladle into hot jars.  Put on lids.

Process in boiling water for 15 minutes.

Dill Pickles

So, after a few years of very poor cucumber growth in my garden, I have finally found success.  Not sure if it is the manure that I put on the garden, the better quality seeds from Vesey's or that I put them in a different part of the garden, but do I ever have cucumbers this year!

I picked these earlier this week.  And they were just the ones that we already HUGE and turning yellow.  I was a little worried that they were going to be bitter, but they were very yummy!

I don't really know what's up with my pickle cucumbers, but they go from way too small to use (same diameter as the stems) to way too big for pickles almost overnight!  And before this week, there was only ever one ready at a time.  I was planning on waiting for enough of them to be ready to make dill pickles, but when I saw how many over grown "little" cucumbers that I had, I knew I had to do something!  So, after some internet searching for pickle recipes and looking in the cupboards to see what was there, I was left with little choice but to cut the pickles and make dills or go to the grocery store of other supplies.  And I didn't want to go to the store!

So, it was pickle making time!  First time in my life that I have ever made pickles by myself!  When I lived at home, I helped mom and grandma make pickles many times, but this is my first sole attempt!

My HUGE pickling cucumbers!

8 pounds of cut up cucumbers.

Soaking my soon to be pickles in ice water.

Cucumbers, garlic and dill in jars . . . 

. . . waiting for brine to be added.

Everything in the jars and ready to go into the canner.

Finished product . . . are they pickles yet?  Not yet, they need to sit for 1-2 months before we can try them.  I'll let you know then how they turned out!

Here is the recipe that I used, minus the hot peppers.  I will probably try another batch with hot peppers if my cucumbers keep growing like they have been!

  http://www.pickles-4u.com/Dill-Pickle-Recipe.php