Pickles!
I loved my mother-in-law. She was a wonderful (and very forgiving) lady and I was so pleased that we shared so many interests in common. Maybe that old song "I want a gal just like the gal that married dear ol' Dad" has a lot of truth to it.
One of the best qualities of my mother-in law was her cooking. Nothing fancy, just plain, wholesome, tasty, old-fashioned cooking. I had adopted many of her recipes over the years, but there was ONE thing that she made that I always meant to try to make with her, but never did.... her absolutely delicious Sweet Pickles. Every time she opened a jar and we were there, we usually finished the jar... and sometimes wanted to open another jar the next meal... greedy devils, weren't we ('we' means the kids and I, her son doesn't really like them!) Several years ago, I had the best intentions and asked her for the recipe and dutifully wrote it down.... but when I realized it took 15 DAYS and 7#s of small, similarly sized cucumbers, I just figured it was too much for me and never made them.
Until this year. I was determined early in the year to GROW enough cucumbers and get that recipe made. If they didn't turn out, all I was out was a few seeds and some garden space. So in January I pored over the seed catalogs and selected a "Pickling cucumber" and was off on a trip to pickle land!
I started several pots of cucumber seeds and most of them grew. I divided the plants among 2 gardens, hoping that if I had a fail at one location, the other would thrive. Of the 2 plants that I put in my little garden here at the house, only one really took off.... another was poorly and the third just disappeared...? Well, it turns out that it was okay to lose a few. My one strong plant started kicking out cucumbers faster than I could pick them! I had about 10-12 cukes ready to pick (of a similar size) every week for a while. So I picked and started pickling....
This recipe calls for a week-long soak in brine, and then another week of clear water and syrup soaking.... so I could pull week 1 pickles out of the brine and put a new week's pick in the brine crock as the first week's cukes went on to another part of the process.
I followed the recipe exactly and at the end of the first 2 weeks with a finished batch... voila! Sweet, SPICY pickles! They tasted like Margie's, but were much stronger! I asked Jim if he thought his Mom might have toned down the spicy and he said sure, they didn't really like spicy, so she probably did. As I was mixing up the second batch, I backed off the allspice, and the second batch was not so strong.
All in all, at the end of 3 weeks, I have 11 pints of sweet pickles and am tickled pink! My cucumber plant has started to back off it's production so I think I will pull it, with assurances that I will try those seeds again next year!
And now for tomatoes..... I hope to have them ripe and ready to have processed before we go on our trip!
One of the best qualities of my mother-in law was her cooking. Nothing fancy, just plain, wholesome, tasty, old-fashioned cooking. I had adopted many of her recipes over the years, but there was ONE thing that she made that I always meant to try to make with her, but never did.... her absolutely delicious Sweet Pickles. Every time she opened a jar and we were there, we usually finished the jar... and sometimes wanted to open another jar the next meal... greedy devils, weren't we ('we' means the kids and I, her son doesn't really like them!) Several years ago, I had the best intentions and asked her for the recipe and dutifully wrote it down.... but when I realized it took 15 DAYS and 7#s of small, similarly sized cucumbers, I just figured it was too much for me and never made them.
Until this year. I was determined early in the year to GROW enough cucumbers and get that recipe made. If they didn't turn out, all I was out was a few seeds and some garden space. So in January I pored over the seed catalogs and selected a "Pickling cucumber" and was off on a trip to pickle land!
I started several pots of cucumber seeds and most of them grew. I divided the plants among 2 gardens, hoping that if I had a fail at one location, the other would thrive. Of the 2 plants that I put in my little garden here at the house, only one really took off.... another was poorly and the third just disappeared...? Well, it turns out that it was okay to lose a few. My one strong plant started kicking out cucumbers faster than I could pick them! I had about 10-12 cukes ready to pick (of a similar size) every week for a while. So I picked and started pickling.... This recipe calls for a week-long soak in brine, and then another week of clear water and syrup soaking.... so I could pull week 1 pickles out of the brine and put a new week's pick in the brine crock as the first week's cukes went on to another part of the process.
I followed the recipe exactly and at the end of the first 2 weeks with a finished batch... voila! Sweet, SPICY pickles! They tasted like Margie's, but were much stronger! I asked Jim if he thought his Mom might have toned down the spicy and he said sure, they didn't really like spicy, so she probably did. As I was mixing up the second batch, I backed off the allspice, and the second batch was not so strong.
All in all, at the end of 3 weeks, I have 11 pints of sweet pickles and am tickled pink! My cucumber plant has started to back off it's production so I think I will pull it, with assurances that I will try those seeds again next year!
Comments
Post a Comment