121 replies to this topic

[ALW]

Made 9 bottles of mustard pickles this week, with some cukes fresh out of the garden. Delicious!  Taste just like the ones my mother and grandmother used to make. May have to lock it up to ensure there are some left to have with fresh venison.

 

Still have some dills and bread & butter to make yet too.

 

Nothing goes with venison like some homemade pickles, or chow!

[hairy_one]

One of my two favourites that I make still using my Mom's recipes....the other is green tomato chow...with the spices left in...none of the gauze sack crap!! Enjoy!!

 

Butch

[KEVIN]

I absolutely love pickling and Jamming in the late summer and the fall.

Thankx to my newfie heritage of course.  I remember Mom doing it without any metal lids...any old bottle was good enuff as long as it was sterilised clean. She topped it off with paraffin wax and a piece of popsicle stick and a string.  Mannn, how I hated that first spoonful of bake apple jam , jam, or jelly with all the wax pieces in it !!!.. lol....but you never got ANY at all,  till that FIRST one spoonful was eaten....lmao

 

Usually starting in June with the strawberry jam....then the marmalade. Always in early August,  I start looking for my supply of pickling cukes. I plant my own dill to help out.  My family and friends look forward to getting their "pickles and beets" from me every season. Got the two youngest grand kids into it now....that and a bit of gardening ! They love it !

 

Since Aug 1st....we've used 150 lbs of pickling cukes. I did 5 cases of 1 liter bottles for dill pickles.....2 cases(500 ml) bread & butter pickles, 1 case (500 ml) sweet mixed pickles(silver skin onions / cauliflower), 8 - 250 ml bottles of sweet gherkins (tiny pickles)

 

also...2 cases(250 ml) blue berry jam....1 case 500 ml (& 1 case of 250 ml) Strawberry jam...18 - 250 ml blackberry Jelly....6 - 500 ml blackberry Jam...1 case (500 ml) of green tomato chow...half with brown sugar instead of white sugar)....2 cases(500 ml) of beets....10 - 1 liter bottles of home made sauerkraut....6 - 250 ml bottles of marmalade.  The last one to finish off my year will be my 2 cases of mustard pickles. I'm hoping to have enuff cukes out of my garden for at least a case...lol

 

Some time within the next 2 weeks or so, me, my sister and my niece will get together and have our pickling party to do the mustard pickles up. Then it'll be done for the year. We can relax and enjoy all the favorite bottled stuff we grew up on. My Mom would be proud !!

...miss ya ma

[hairy_one]

Kevin...you have to stop cloaking your invitations to me....of course I'll take a bunch of that off your hands...no need to beg....LOL...awesome stuff Kevin.....I am sure your family will not only enjoy these homemade treats but by doing this I am sure the tradition will be carried on for generations to come. Well done!!

 

Butch

[Waye Out There]

Well worth the visit Butch. I can personally attest to Kevin's pickling abilities. They were delicious. Thanks again

[ALW]

Holy smokes Kevin, you are a canning/preserving machine! I stand humbled. But give me a few years and I may catch up to you! LoL

 

I'd made freezer jam before (peach, strawberry), and made more strawberry this year, but this is my first year actually making pickles. And I'm surprised how much I enjoyed it! Makes the house smell like I remember as a kid.

 

Made 5 bottles of garlic dill spears today, and have another batch of mustard pickles sitting in brine now, to bottle this evening; and 6lbs of pickling cukes to make into bread & butter pickles tomorrow. I'm hoping to get one more batch of cukes from the garden to make relish too. Plus I've got a ton of Roma tomatoes waiting to ripen, and to make tomato sauce with. And I found a recipe for curry pickled cauliflower that I don't see how I can't make a batch of to at least try. Especially when local cauliflower is only $1.49 head! LoL

 

Hope to get all this pickle making stuff done so as to have a break before the venison sausage making season starts. Plus I found my grandmother's mincemeat recipe, and may have to whip up some of that with some venison neck.

 

Next year I'm doing pickled beets and green beans too, and maybe try making chow. I'm turning into my grand parents! LoL

[KEVIN]

ALW...I ain't out to humble anybody....lol.

This is something that was always done at our place when we were growing up. I loved it then and even more so now, esp since I can share it with friends and the whole fam damily !!

I keep telling them ....to put down their phones....put their lives on hold for a weekend or two, and learn some of this stuff....but while ever the free-ride express is still rollin, they'll allll be on it....lmao

 

Our kitchen must have smelled like your grand ma's back in the day.  Pretty cool how our noses can bring back memories huh ?

[KEVIN]

Hey Butch....any ol time you want to blow some dust off that "lil two wheeler"....come on down !  

We  got a deck here, and the wifey brews some good stuff too...lol  

 

Just make sure you have an empty saddle bag when you get here 

[ALW]

What a poor bloody night to make pickles! LoL It must have been 100 degrees in the house, and muggy as can be, before I had a big water bath steaming away on the stove, along with a pot of boiling brine, and the oven on to sterilize bottles. I nearly melted! All that said I now have 14 bottles of bread & butter pickles to go with rest.

 

Holy smokes, cutting up all this stuff by hand got old fast. Looking forward to my new mandolin slicer to arrive from Amazon, should be here in time to make the relish... thankfully!

 

If nothing else I'll have pickles if I don't fill my tag this season. LoL

 

You are right Kevin, every once in a while you'll catch a whiff of something, and it'll take you right back to a another place and time almost as if you were right there again. A sorta olfactory deja vu.

 

Happy pickling & hunting!

[KEVIN]

HA HA.....I hear ya about the gd humidity !! Man...it's STIFLING !!!!!

 I use my old coleman propane stove out in my porch to do all my water bath and brine boils...but at the same time, I keep all my clean bottles in there boiling away till I'm ready to use them....keeps that friggen oven off in the kitchen...lol

I keep my lids in a small pot and do my final boil and bottle on the kitchen stove.

[ALW]

Do the water bath outside on the porch on a propane stove! You are not just another pretty face are ya Kevin?

 

Awesome advice, and lesson learned and added to my bag of tricks for the next batch. Thank you for the tip.

 

The house was still gawd awful hot this morning, think we near killed the poor dog! I won't be rushing to do much cooking of any kind in the house next time the humidex is in the upper 30's! LoL

[JohnHope]

We have a ton of English and dill pickles (the dill are pretty big). They all taste good, so can I make Pickes, preferably bread and butter, out of them? We cannot eat them all before they go bad so I want to try pickling.

Thanks,

John

[ALW]

I'm no expert, for sure, but I think you could use them no problem. If they are bigger I suggest that you simply remove the inner seedy portion. That is what I did with my dill spears. I cut them about 1/2" shorter than the bottle height, cut them into quarters and cut the seeded piece away from the solid cuke.

 

I've got 5 bottles of mustard green beans in the hot water bath now. Seems I've found another new hobby, LoL. So far the results have been delicious.  

[KEVIN]

John....I used some of my BIG pickling cukes fir dills.....four to a bottle....lol, but when they're fully seasoned....sliced length ways or cross on a good angle...they're awesome on a loaded B B Q burger !!

 

I've even sliced them in half ( long ways )...then sliced em up for bread and butter pickles. They're just as good as the small ones too...actually a bit better in my books.

[JohnHope]

Thanks fellas. Off to the store and then try a recipe.

[JohnHope]

Hey Kevin how many cups of pickles does your bread and butter mixture make?

[KEVIN]

Ha...Ha...well...My measuring cups are like my moms...there's a four cup line about an inch from the top...yeah well, ...she always filled it up to the VERY top !....heh  heh...I'm the same way !

 

John I usually get about 7 or 8 - 500ml bottles....I always have a couple of 250's in the before bath also..just in case.  I use a strainer to fill the bottles with the cooked B&B pickles...then add my brine/broth when it's full.

 

The recipe we've always used is the one on the back of the Club House pickling spice bag.. It's basically the same one in my Bernardin book, and on the Bernardin site as well. I add a couple of TBSP's of loose mustard seed extra  to the mix.

 

...I'm like butch...I like the little seeds in there, even tho my Dr. says I should avoid that kind of stuff since I have diverticulie pockets in my bowel

[JohnHope]

My advice for perfect pickles:

1. Find out something Kevin likes and bribe him to help you.

2. Find some information you can you use to blackmail Kevin into helping you.

3. Accept defeat. Measure you pots carefully to make sure your stuff will fit. I made the mistake of boiling my bottles in the big pot, and using small pit for veggies. Small pot was too small. Always use the bigger pot for veggies.

4. Ask Kevin questions online. Hit refesh as your veggies boil.

5. Keep a piece of raw cucumber. The instructions say "cook until yellow/green". They were green to start with. The cucumber helps with "green" vs. "yellow/green".

6. It takes a lot more heat to boil jars full of vegetables. Turn it up to high before you add the vegetables.

7. Question whether or not the pickles will turn out well. Repeat steps 1 and 2, but this time asking for completed pickles. The guy had like 5 flats of pickles, he can spare a couple bottles.

[KEVIN]

 @ John

 

Your pots can never be big enough when it comes to preserving and pickling !!

 

That is the ONE thing I always look for at yard / garage sales...large enameled stainless pots...big wooden spoons. Bernardin has a large water bath canning pot / kit....comes with a rack with handles for inside the pot....great for lifting your bottles out....and lowering the full ones in.

[superslickie]

Kevin , I got me one of the big pressure cooker. It's about 2 ft deep and it has the plates so you can stack bottles. I can get 24bottles in the pot at one go
The big propane burner outside makes boiling water too easy