The Pickle Operation

With winter fast approaching, thoughts turn to harvesting what is left in the garden and finding some way to enjoy that goodness throughout the long winter months. I never really gave a thought to storing food before. I have had a garden every year, even while living in an apartment. I just grew my peppers and tomatoes in containers on my patio and then when winter arrived, left what was on the vine to birds or to decompose once it was too cold to go outside anymore. These days, with everything getting so expensive in the grocery store, I thought about how good it would be to have these items available right in my house right at a moment’s notice, even with a blizzard blowing outside. Since we live in a house now, we have an even greater amount of vegetables such as cabbage and squash which we planted and have in surplus. I think what planted the seed for freezing, canning and storing items was my husband’s love for pickles. I have never seen anyone eat pickles like this guy. Even a pregnant woman in the midst of a craving could not compete with his zest for pickles. He did not know what he was missing though until at the mall one day, I saw a little stand advertising “That Pickle Guy”. I tried one of his pickles and was amazed at the crunch and freshness of it. It was full of flavor and was not limp or mushy like some of the pickles you find at the grocery store which are full of preservatives. I brought Joe to the mall with me and after trying them, he was hooked as well. We bought two of the different flavors of pickles he sold as well as Giardiniera and an Olive Muffalata. After that, we did not give pickles much thought and bought the Pickle Guy’s pickles from time to time. Then this year we bought two little pickling cucumber plants. My husband decided that he was going to try to make his own pickles. I have to be honest. Although I supported him in his endeavor, I did not think it was going to work out well. But we ended up with a whole lot of cucumbers and we found this recipe online and started canning away. We canned with fresh dill, hot peppers from our own garden, and also organic garlic, making different flavors. The only thing we did different from the recipe was to use cider vinegar as it keeps the water in the jars more clarified instead of cloudy.  We did cold canning at first, putting the boiling brine in the jars, letting the jars seal, and then immediately refrigerating. Joe was becoming his own pickle guy! I was skeptical at first but two weeks later we opened a jar and oh my goodness, they were amazing. The flavor was to our liking because we put as much garlic and heat as we wanted. Also it was nice to be able to control the amount of salt in them as well. Then an obsession was born! I started researching more about storage of vegetables. We had some large zucchini and I shredded those one night until late and froze them. Just this past weekend, I made two wonderful loaves of zucchini bread. Then I also froze hot peppers from our garden. Once our cucumber plants started failing and the cucumber harvest was not as plentiful, we turned to the local farmers market, buying about 4 more pounds. That evening we canned until 1 in the morning. We have made about 20 jars total and 5 of those hot canned. We have given some away as presents. One person even described them “addictive as crack”.

Putting the cucumbers in an icebath

Getting ready to load up the jars

Canned Pickles!

I encourage you to start your own “operation”, whatever it may be. You can can!

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