A day of relationship building while preserving pickles and the tradition!
Cynthia Fawcett and friend cuddle during a prime “hair net” photo opp at the second Slow Food Canning Bee this fall! There is nothing like cooking or canning with a friend! Jowhanna Aleyne prepared this day as well as the Fruit Canning Bee in August. You can find the recipes for today here at Edmonton’s Slow Food website. This is my photo essay of our day together!
What a fantastic day!
Brining Herb Recipe
Fills 2 one litre jars, or 4 one pint jars
Ingredients:
- 3 pounds small cucumbers
- 1 head fresh dill
- 2 cups white vinegar
- 1 cup cider vinegar
- 3 cups water
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 1/3 cup pickling salt
- 2 tbsp classic pickling spice blend, tied in a cheesecloth bag (recipe follows)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 8 allspice berries (Jowhanna used 3 pink peppercorns per jar, instead)
Instructions:
- Scrub and drain cucumbers, ensuring the ends are 1/2 inch shorter than the height of the jar you are using; quarter each lengthwise so you have four spears from each length of cucumber
- Snip the stems of each dill floret, leaving a bit of the stem length for a handle; you will need 4 florets per jar, 16 total
- Heat 4 one pint jars in boiling water and sterilize (scald) the lids, tongs and funnel
- Start to heat the water bath for processing the pickles
- Combine the next 6 ingredient (#3 to in a large pot over high heat, stirring constantly until sugar and salt is dissolved; reduce and boil gently, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes
- Pack cucumber spears into hot jars: add dill, one garlic clove and 2 allspice berries per jar
- Ladle hot brine into jar to cover cucumber spears leaving 1/2 inch headspace
- Run a non-metallic utensil around the inside edge of the jar, allowing any trapped air to escape; add more brine if necessary
- Wipe rims, top with flat lids, and screw on metal rings
- Place jars in hot water bath, topping up with hot water, if necessary
- Bring to a full rolling boil, and process for 15 minutes
- Remove canner lid and wait 5 miutes before removing jars from the canner
- Check seals, label and store in a cool, dry place for up to one year
Note: If you want to do 4 litres of pickles, you do not double the recipe; increase the liquid amounts by roughly 2 1/4 times the measures below, using large cucumbers cut into eighths
Hey, your blog is great, but could you figure out how to truncate your posts in your RSS feed (similar to the “Read the rest of this entry” one sees when viewing the blog in a browser)? All of the pictures are ginormous. Thanks!
Joel,
The pics are wide – is that what you mean? They are relatively small memorywise. I don’t currently have a technology expert anymore – but thank you SO much for letting me know this and I will put it on the list and see what I can do. That is definitely not good! I have an iphone and all is fine there – but then, I just go directly to my site and don’t use any feeds.
Appreciate it!
Valerie
Ah, I meant the large number of photos makes for a ton of scrolling.
It looks like you’re using WordPress to manage the blog; to change this you need to change your RSS file to display excerpts, not full posts. The person who set up the blog should be able to help you do this- here’s a help page from wordpress that might help: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/read-more-truncation-in-rss-feed
Thanks, Joel!
So much! In Assisi now… but, it is on “the” list!
🙂
v
I need to break open my pickled tomatoes!
Kate!
Give me the link to your pickled tomates! I must read about them!
🙂
Valerie
Great pictures…looks like a lot of hard work made easier with fun, good friends and good food. The perogies look delicious…did someone make them or did you get them from somewhere?
Chris,
The ladies of the church space we used made the dinner – hand made. That is how they raise money and by buying the dinner, we got to use their kitchen. A great “partnership” than Johwanna worked out!
🙂
V
Which church? Do they sell to the public?
Thankyou.
It’s all in the post Chris – or maybe the first one, about the fruit canning… take a look there. In Italy right now.
🙂
V
It was in the fruit canning (Aug) post. Grazie. Have a wonderful trip.
You are all great. What a big give and take:)) People in Türkiye love pickles, but we do differently. Love
Sare!
Will take a look at your site! Thanks for visiting!
🙂
V