Busy, Busy, Busy with Cucumbers

Right now as I type, I am preparing cucumbers for canning - pickles actually. My little one loves lime pickles and we have been paying nearly $5 a pint jar for these pickles. I decided to try my hand at making some pickles myself. Tonight makes my second batch. The first batch was awesome!

Here's the recipe that I used - lime pickles.

I didn't have a crock or enamel pot so I put these in a plastic trash can. Of course I washed it extremely well - LOL! I went by the recipe almost exactly for the first batch. I added a 1/2 stick of cinnamon to each jar, because that's what Mama used to do.

Tonight I changed things just a bit by adding a tablespoon of pickling spice and a tablespoon of cloves plus the cinnamon stick. This recipe is very easy to follow and proved to be successful.

I did do a better job of dissolving the lime in the second batch by stirring it more before I added the cucumbers.

As a precaution, I not only heat the jars but I also put a metal spoon into each jar as I am filling them with the hot pickles and syrup. My grandmother told me once that a metal spoon would absorb some of the heat and keep the jar from breaking. I don't know how much truth there is to that or if it is even necessary with canning jars, but I can say that I have never had a jar break with that metal spoon it it.

I wish I could share a taste of these pickles with you to encourage you to try it. They are so much better than those bread and butter pickles you buy from the store.

Enough for now. It's time to get up and get those pickles in the jars. I hope that some of my canning and freezing posts will inspire you to put up some food this summer.

Busy, Busy, Busy with Green Beans

Green Beans

My husband planted green beans at my mother-in-law's during the spring. They have now come and gone and we have put up about 7 quarts in the freezer and eaten several meals of them, too. These were Italian green beans (the flat ones).



Here's what I do to put these in the freezer:

1. Wash beans well and snap or cut into one inch pieces.


2. We snip away both ends as well.


3. Cover with water and bring to boil.


4. Boil for 10 minutes (until they change colors - darker green).


5. Let cool.


6. Drain and place in freezer bags. (My mother-in-law adds the juice but I don't.)


7. Continue to cool until they can go into the freezer.

I don't put green beans in jars because I don't have a canner and was not very successful one earlier time that I tried it. Time is required for the beans to cool, but they are always good out of the freezer and so much better than those in the grocery store. Plus since we grew them, we know what chemicals weren't put on them.

When I cook these, I place them in a pot straight from the freezer and cover with water. I add onion, garlic, salt and a little piece of smoked meat (bacon or sausage) and cook until desired doneness.

Busy, Busy, Busy with Tomatoes

You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much in the last week or so. We have been putting up vegetables from our garden and some that we have gotten from local growers. Amanda at Coping With Frugality commented in this post that she would like instructions on what I did so I'll be starting posts on those.

Tomatoes

This first post is for tomatoes. We got several boxes from a local grower and did three different batches as they ripened.

After having several jars of tomatoes spoil last fall, I decided to freeze all of the tomatoes this season. We have plenty of room in the outside freezer and freezer bags are not very expensive (actually cheaper than jars).

1. Bring water to nearly a boil in a large stockpot or dutch oven. This water will be used to scald the skins on the tomatoes. It doesn't have to be boiling but it does need to be HOT. I have found that scalding the skins doesn't waste as much of the tomatoes as cutting away the skins with a knife.
2. Wash tomatoes and place in stockpot with hot water. Leave for a couple of minutes. When you notice the skins slipping, you can remove the tomatoes and add more. My husband and I do this together. He adds the tomatoes and removes them. Then I continue with the next step.
3. Let tomatoes cool a few minutes and remove skins. Remove any hard core, stems, etc.
4. Then cut up into the sizes that you prefer for later use. Add cut up pieces to a thick stockpot and boil.
5. Tomatoes are blanched when they start to form a lighter red color foam on top.
6. Let cool enough to handle(this may take a while) and scoop into freezer bags.
7. Once cooled even more, bags can be placed in freezer.

If you don't have one of these canning funnels, get one. It makes getting the vegetables into jars or freezer bags much easier. I have a metal one like this and a plastic one. Either one is fine. The metal one belonged to my grandmother so I have kept it, but I probably use the plastic one the most.