Oh, Pickles!!

After posting I Can, You Can? I took a week off. I froze raspberries, strawberries, canned peaches and I made pickles for the first time ever! I am so pleased with the fruits (or vegetables LOL) of my labor. The pickles taste wonderful and the peaches look great (haven’t tasted them yet) I made both dill pickles and a whole lot of sweet Gherkins.

Everyone in our family loves Gherkins but they are $2.99-$4.99/395ml here. At that price we don’t eat a lot of them. That is sad since they make a nice snack with cheese and crackers or as an addition to lunch for an extra vegetable serving. Yes, I know they have quite a big of sugar in them but since we eat very little processed foods or snacks, it isn’t an issue for our family.

With this recipe at the most it costs me $3.00/liter and with the discounted baby cucumbers I got this past weekend at the farmers market ($10/bushel!) they are costing about $1.00/liter!Amazing and so yummy. They are easy to make but a little time consuming as well.

Easy,  Week-Long Gherkin Pickles (Completely worth the time!!)

• 8lbs of baby Cucumbers
• Sugar
• Salt
• Vinegar
• Turmeric
• Pickling Spice (2 tsp)
• Cloves (1 tsp)
• Celery Seed (1 tsp)
• Cinnamon Sticks (1 or 2)
• All Spice (1/2 tsp)

Day one: Rinse cucumbers. Boil approx 24 liters of water, add 1/4 cup salt. Pour over cucumbers and let sit overnight.

Day two: Drain, rinse and repeat above.

Day three: Drain, rinse cucumbers. Boil 4 cups of vinegar with 3 1/2 cups of sugar and 1 tsp of turmeric. Put other spices into a spice bag (cheesecloth, whatever) and boil in the vinegar mixture. Prick cucumbers in many places, pour boiling mixture over top of the cucumbers and let sit overnight.

Day four: Drain, reserving liquid. Bring remaining liquid to a boil adding an additional 1 1/2 cups each of sugar and vinegar. Pour over cucumbers and let stand overnight.

Day five: Drain, reserve liquid. Bring liquid to a boil with an additional cup of vinegar and two of sugar. Pour over cucumbers and let stand 8 hours. Drain, reserve liquid, bring to a boil, adding an additional cup of sugar. Remove spice bag.  Pack cucumbers tightly into hot jars. Pour liquid over them leaving 1/4 inch headroom and process in a boiling water canner for approx 10 minutes.

• Recipe is adapted from the Ball Blue Book of Preserving which I purchased off eBay.
• This post links to Tasty Tuesday, Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Works for Me Wednesday, Finer Things Friday and Frugal Friday. It seems to fit well with all of them!