Making Pickles
On Sunday evening I went out and picked 4 Boston Pickling Cucumbers that were the perfect size for pickling in spears. I have been reading through the book I got the other day and I settled on a quick pickle recipe.
I reduced the recipe because most of them call for several pounds of cucumbers and I only had about 1 and a quarter pound. So I found a recipe that made 1 quart. I changed it a bit, because I just can’t seem to follow a recipe by the book.
We’ll see how they turn out, I didn’t can them because it was such a small batch. I’m basically brining them in the fridge for a month or so.
Here’s the recipe I used:
Quick Small Batch Dill Pickles
4 pickling cucumbers (around 1 pound)
1 cup water
7/8 cup of white wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of pickling salt
2 garlic cloves
8 peppercorns
2 teaspoons of pickling spice (or a pinch of flaked red pepper)
fresh dill sprigs
8 sour cherry leaves (they’re supposed to promote crispness) or 3-4 grape leaves
Bring water, vinegar and salt to a boil. Meanwhile scrub and cut pickles into desired sizes. Add pickling spices, peppercorns, fresh dill, cherry leaves to quart canning jar. Add pickles to jar and pour brine over the pickles. Seal with lid and put in refrigerator for at least one month. Alternately you can water bath can pints or quarts for 10 minutes .
I’ll let you know in a month or so how they turned out. My next batch will probably be using a different recipe, perhaps I’ll try soaking the cucumbers in salt before I pickle them. Or perhaps I’ll make some fermented pickles.
Do you like sour or sweet pickles?
Share this:
The Joys of Summer
One of the great joys of summer is stopping at a little ice cream place on the way home. I grew up in a ice cream loving family, we found ourselves frequently stopping for ice cream at little shops.
Yesterday we went to the local greenhouse with some friends and we met my parents there. My parents decided to come to our house for a visit afterward to see what the gardens looked like, so we took the scenic route home through the little town of New Baltimore.
We stopped by this great little ice cream place that we love. The sizes of the cones are outrageous as well, this is a large with the top scoop almost gone already! They say if you get the jumbo they have to turn it sideways to get it out the window.
They have so many different flavors of ice cream and it’s all made in house.
Their raspberry ice cream is really fantastic (this is what we had) and our friend Missy said their chocolate was really good as well.
My dad & mom went for old-fashioned vanilla, always a safe bet.
This little ice cream is stand is one of the best around so we find ourselves there a few times during the summer.
Do you have a favorite little local ice cream shop you visit?
Share this:
Front Foundation Gardens
I don’t often post all-around garden photos that show large areas of our gardens. Right now is when I love the way our front foundation gardens look. They’re full of color and bursting at the seams with vegetables, flowers and herbs. I thought I’d share some overall photos of them.
These garden beds are pretty most of the warm months, they’re full of things that bloom throughout the season, bulbs for spring, flowers for summer and fall and kale for winter interest. July, however is my favorite season in the front foundation garden.
These gardens change every year. I plant new things and move old ones, or get rid of plants that I don’t like. This year I gave my mom a bright pink tall phlox and next year I think I’ll be getting rid of the daylillies.
They’re still a work in progress, this year I’m adding the rock edging along the front, and I also added a lot of edible plants (can you spot them?). I have bluberries, cabbage, broccoli, sweet potatoes, dill, thyme, chives, basil and hyssop growing in these beds.
I’d really like to keep all bloom colors in the purple and white category with perhaps the occasional pink or green thrown in. I’m slowing working my way towards that goal.
What’s your favorite time for your ornamental gardens?
Share this:
Time for Pickles
When Mr Chiots went to the library yesterday, The Joy of Pickling, Revised Edition: 250 Flavor-Packed Recipes for Vegetables and More from Garden or Market
It came in just in time, because when I was out looking around the garden yesterday evening I spotted these.
I’m planning on making refrigerator pickles because I like them really crispy. I’ll probably be making them on Sunday or early next week when I have some time.
Are you already preserving from your garden harvest?
Share this:
What a Mess!
We’re having some work done on our basement and everything is a mess! We found out that we have radon in the basement and we’ve always had a bit of a moisture problem so we decided to go with a special coating for the walls & floor.
The problem is that we needed to have all of the old paint off the floors and walls. So we hired Alexander Sandblasting from Big Prairie, OH to come sandblast and paint the basement. Generally we’re DIYer’s when it comes to home improvement projects, but we decided that sandblasting, although messy, was the best option and we had no desire to try to tackle that ourselves.
So this is what’s in our driveway, and it sounds like we have a few very large jets taking off in the basement.
Needless to say spending the day in the garden where I can hardly hear the racket sounds like a good idea to me!
Anyone else tacking big projects this summer?
