Aug. 5, 2012 at 10:32am with 1 note
canningagriculturegardeningpreservingyummyrelishpickles
This is what I’ve been working on this morning. It’s one of my favorite relishes. I wish you could smell this mix! Base is shredded cucumber, then throw in a ton of onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, four big poblano peppers (not as hot as most, but just enough to give it some kick), an entire bunch of celery, about 8 cloves of garlic, and top off with fresh dill.  The smell is absolutely amazing! The whole mess is now sitting in a salt water bath for 3 hours, after which it gets drained, cooked with cider vinegar, sugar, mustard seed and optional cloves and/or all spice, which I usually leave out. Then processed in hot water bath for about 15 minutes. Figure I’ll end up with about 20 - 30 half pints. Usually do it half pints because a little goes a long way. Man, I’m going to have to put up more shelves in the basement this year! Yesterday we did sweetcorn. All we did was cook up the ears, and after cooling them down cutting the corn off and freezing it. I don’t like to can corn because it’s low acid which means pressure canning with long processing times. I think the frozen tastes better anyway. Anyway, I still have 10 gallons of cucumbers sitting out in the garage! And that’s after giving away about 10 gallons of the dopey things. Frankly, we’re pretty much all pickled out! At least as far as the cukes are concerned. I’ve been looking into pickled onion recipes and there are some really good looking methods that I’m going to try in the next couple of weeks.

This is what I’ve been working on this morning. It’s one of my favorite relishes. I wish you could smell this mix! Base is shredded cucumber, then throw in a ton of onion, red bell pepper, green bell pepper, four big poblano peppers (not as hot as most, but just enough to give it some kick), an entire bunch of celery, about 8 cloves of garlic, and top off with fresh dill. 

The smell is absolutely amazing!

The whole mess is now sitting in a salt water bath for 3 hours, after which it gets drained, cooked with cider vinegar, sugar, mustard seed and optional cloves and/or all spice, which I usually leave out. Then processed in hot water bath for about 15 minutes.

Figure I’ll end up with about 20 - 30 half pints. Usually do it half pints because a little goes a long way.

Man, I’m going to have to put up more shelves in the basement this year!

Yesterday we did sweetcorn. All we did was cook up the ears, and after cooling them down cutting the corn off and freezing it. I don’t like to can corn because it’s low acid which means pressure canning with long processing times. I think the frozen tastes better anyway.

Anyway, I still have 10 gallons of cucumbers sitting out in the garage! And that’s after giving away about 10 gallons of the dopey things.

Frankly, we’re pretty much all pickled out! At least as far as the cukes are concerned. I’ve been looking into pickled onion recipes and there are some really good looking methods that I’m going to try in the next couple of weeks.

  1. krippner posted this