Gad-Cukes!

"Examine preserves [in storage], to see that they are not contracting mould; and your pickles, to see that they are not growing soft and tasteless."

– Lydia M. Child, The American Frugal Housewife (1832)

      Anyone else feeling a little tired lately?  It must be harvesting season, or canning season, or freezing season, or dehydrating season… hmm… maybe this is why I’m feeling a little tired.  Last week, I had the fortunate of walking out to our cucumber plants for the first time in my life, and harvesting cucumbers to process!  Then I had a few days where those cucumbers sat in a basket in my fridge and telling me to “process us quickly, before something else comes up!”  Looks like I better listen to those talking cucumbers because that sweet corn sure is coming in fast now! 

      Our first cucumber crop is looking to me like a batch of sweet pickle relish (and some bread and butter pickles)!  It’s not that we don’t like pickles (only I do actually, the husband can’t stand them), but some of our family members love the relish that we give as Christmas gifts with other goodies each year.  So before the day heated up, I headed out into the kitchen for some canning!  If you’d like to follow along and can some of your own sweet pickle relish, I’ve added the directions below. 

Ingredients:

• 6 cups seeded and finely chopped pickling cucumbers (We have “pickle barrel” cucumbers in the garden, so I ended up using five big ones and getting about 6 cups worth)
• 3 cups finely chopped onion (In my case that meant one big candy onion we had downstairs)
• 3 cups of seeded and finely chopped green and red sweet peppers (I used some from the freezer, and mixed together whatever I could find of the two since our pepper plants aren’t at the harvesting stage yet.  I usually try to go heavy on the red pepper for pretty, but couldn’t find enough of it to do so this year.  If you didn't notice, we're canning with what's on hand right now.)
• ¼ cup of pickling salt
• Cold water
• 3 cups granulated cane sugar (We prefer to use granulated sugar made with sugar cane instead of sugar beets, which are more likely to be GMOs.  You can find out on your bag whether you have sugar cane sugar or sugar beet sugar)
• 2 cups cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon mustard seeds
• 2 teaspoons celery seeds
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric

Directions:

Step 1: Scrub clean the cucumbers with a vegetable brush.  We actually have a carrot brush, which works wonderfully, thanks to one of the volunteers who gave out very meaningful Christmas gifts to all the staff members at a former job.  (She pegged what we’d like!  Our gift was all fun cooking stuff!).

Step 2: Start to multi-task, as I fill a water bath canner in the sink and start to get it up to temp on the stove by heating it on a lower setting as it will take a little while before I actually need it, I also start to finely dice and deseed the cucumbers.  Sure, you could use a chopper or food processor, but as some relatives and friends probably think by now, I must be a glutton for punishment as I hand chop them all.  For some reason, my mother taught me that chopping vegetables could be a joy – a task that I liked to take over when making lentil soup as a child.  Thinking back, perhaps she had some ulterior motives for this… All the “scraps” that I can’t use are going to the chickens.  (P.S. – All this hand chopping could take a while so pull out the laptop and turn on a video and try to pass the time.  I just happened to enjoy a very interesting BBC series on Edwardian farming on YouTube.)

Step 3: Finely chop onions.  (We discard our “scraps” to the compost bin bucket for these.) 

Step 4:  Finely chop peppers. Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with these peppers, they just happen to have frost on them from the freezer.  Thawing them just a little, but not entirely, makes them easier to cut. (We discard our “scraps” to the compost bin bucket for these.) 

Step 5: Combine all the vegetables and pickling salt into a pot or bowl and cover with cold water.  Let sit at room temperature for 2 hours.  Take a break!  (Actually, in my case, I started slicing cucumbers and onions and chopping garlic for bread and butter pickles as they chill for 3 to 12 hours in the refrigerator, so I could can them while the canner was hot.)

Step 6: Drain and rinse the vegetables in a colander under cold water in the sink.  Then return to the pot on the stovetop and add your spices, sugar and vinegar.  Bring it to a boil and reduce heat, allowing it to simmer for about 20 minutes or until about half the liquid is boiled off.  Make sure to stir occasionally or it could stick to the bottom!

Step 7: Ladle quickly into prepared jars, leaving a 1/4 to 1/2 inch of headspace on each jar.  (For some reason, it seems I never have enough hands available to remember to take a photograph of this step.)  Wipe rims clean and place lids and bands on tightly.  Process jelly jars for 10 minutes in a water bath canner.  Remove from the canner.  Place jars, upright, on cookie racks or clean dish towels to cool for at least 24 hours.

Yields approximately 8 jelly jars (8oz.).

And last, but not least – label the jars and load up the pantry!  Where am I putting these?  Oh, wait… there’s an empty spot!  Just let me shift a few things around… there.  DONE!  (At this point is where you can imagine a cartoon version of me standing back proudly examining my handy work as the cucumbers grow with profusion on the vine outside the window, about to explode at any moment.  And yes, a few short days later, it looks like we’ll have to be canning again soon.) 

 What have you been canning lately?