Peter Piper

Peter Piper may have picked a peck of pickled peppers, but we decided to make our own.  

Ralph got the idea of making pickles (and beer, and pretzels, and a few other things) while we were living in Italy.  The plans never came to fruition over there, but when he met a fellow law student who was into pickling we knew we had to try it out.  

After visiting the farmers market, I decided to make some bread and butter pickles.  I combined a few recipes ({this one} and {this one}) and with some guidance from our pickling friend I came up with a plan that I thought would work best.  

I didn't use any of the hot hot peppers, but I did pickle a few radishes.  

Obviously, the Darby girl was a huge help, providing mostly moral support but also offering some taste testing services.

So, on to the pickling process.  First I cut up the cucumbers.  We bought a few larger cucumbers and I decided to use them instead of the baby cukes because I figured B&B pickles would be better as chips.  

Darby did a little quality control during this process.  

"Yep, Mom, these taste fine…"

One problem I read about was that homemade pickles can lose their "crunch".  I tried to find a happy medium between chips that were too thin and too thick.  

Once they were all cut up, I put them in a bowl with some salt, covered, and refrigerated them for a little over an hour.  After they had been sitting for a while I drained them and rinsed the salt off.  

While the cucumbers were in the refrigerator I made up the brine.  It was a mixture of apple cider vinegar, sugar, and spices.  We tasted some of the pickles this morning and while they are quite tasty, I think I will lessen the amount of cloves I use in the next batch.  

I also chopped up an onion and a few cloves of garlic to add to the mix.  Speaking of garlic, it's a pain in the butt to peel, but we did find {this} video about half way through the peeling process and it made things a lot easier!  

The next step is where I will definitely be changing my method on the next go around.  The directions I followed called for you to mix all of the cucumbers, onions, garlic, and brine together before putting them in the jars.  Once they were sealed, I noticed there was a ton of extra space in the jar.  So next time I'll pack the jars with the vegetables first, and then pour the brine over the top.  You can get a lot more into the jars that way.  

Anyway, once the jars were filled I sealed them with hot lids and put them in a water bath.  

They simmered in the water for about 10 minutes before I took them out.  I highly recommend getting a canning "gear" set if you're going to do something like this.  The one we picked up came with a tool to get the air bubbles out of the jar, a magnet wand to lift the hot lids out of the water, and a set of tongs to insert and remove the jars from the water bath.  If we didn't have those tools I'm pretty sure the process would have ended up with a hospital visit thrown in the mix.  

After taking them out of the water, I covered them with a towel and let the jars seal.  Any good southern girl knows not to go anywhere near a can while it's sealing.  Patience is a virtue in the canning process.  

After my bread and butter batch was done, we moved on to Ralph's pickles.  He packed the jars tight with okra, hot and sweet peppers, dill, and garlic before adding the brine.  It's definitely the way to do things.  

We ended up with 24 jars of pickles and we're really excited about trying them.  Every jar is different, so opening each one will yield a new taste.  Whether that taste is good or bad is yet to be determined, but we have high hopes for these pickles!