A Taste of Summer - Bread & Butter Pickles

BREAD & BUTTER PICKLES

This post is late. However there is a reason for that. Pickles. Something I have only attempted with the Mixed Pickles earlier this summer. In reading up on how to prepare & make pickles I discovered hundreds of horrible things that can go wrong making pickles. Cloudy pickles, mushy pickles, off coloured pickles, bitter pickles, blossom ends from cucumbers, shriveled pickles.....it had me frightened to attempt pickles. 

Then there was the fun search in my neighborhood to get the proper pickles to make them! Bought the wrong ones initially. Then discovered my local grocery store had them on for 8 dollars for a small basket. Husband confirmed they were punky & unusable at that price regardless. Nothing at the farmers market. Then behold! The little produce store tucked in at the end of Vaughn Rd had them & at the astonishing price of 50 cents a pound. For 2$ I made enough pickles to last a year. As well, they were amazing! I just had to let them wait & well....pickle in the brine before I wrote this post. I didn't want to create fanfare over something that wound up tasting like junk. It was worth the wait. Some of the feedback I received was:

1. Aunt Mary - We had some of your pickles with lunch. They are wonderful! What flavour!

2. Leilani - They are tasty treats

3. Luke - Got into them last night! HOLY SHIT those are good pickles!!! My only complaint....MUCH too small a jar!!

Sounds like I hit the jackpot!

So here it is! My best received canning project to date - Bread & Butter Pickles.

SELECT YOUR CUCUMBERS:

The best info I got on picking pickles came from the PICKYOUROWN.ORG blog. The cucumbers should be less than 2 inches in diametre. Dark green, firm & lots of warts. When you cut it open it should have little to no seeds.

INGREDIENTS:

2.5 cups of sliced pickling cucumbers (I cut mine about 1 cm to 2 cms thick & cut the ends off)

1/2 a small onion. I am cheap & used a small yellow onion common at grocery stores.

1.5 tbsp of kosher salt

1/2 cup of cider vinegar

1 cup of white vinegar

1/3 cup of packed brown sugar

1/2 cup of white sugar

1/2 tsp of celery seeds

1/2 tsp of yellow mustard seeds

Black peppercorns for each jar

Pick Crisp Granules - follow directions on the package for use in the jars YOU are using.

DIRECTIONS for VEGETABLES:

1. Cut your cucumbers about 1 cm to 2 cms thick. You don't want them too thin. Cut the ends off the cucumber & discard them. You can get fancy & use a wavy knife to make your finished pickles extra cute.

2. Cut your small onion up into fine slices. Add both to a colander & rise thoroughly.

3. Put the onion & cucumber into a large bowl. Toss with the kosher salt evenly. Cover the vegetables with ice water (lots of ice in it) & let sit in the fridge for two hours. 

4. After that just drain. Do not rinse anything.

5. At this point I started to pre boil & prep my jars for canning

DIRECTIONS FOR BRINE:

1. Get a saucepan out - STAINLESS STEEL FOLKS! Non reactive cookware is best or you get funny coloured pickles! 

2.  Add your vinegars, your sugars, your celeryseed & mustard seeds. Bring it to a simmer & make sure your sugar dissolves. Use a wood spoon when mixing - again, it's non reactive.

CANNING PROCESS:

1. Get your prepped canning jars ready. In the bottom of each put the required amount of pickle crisp for your size of jar (again all different depending on what size jar you use) as well as 5 black peppercorns in each jar.

2. Pack each jar with the drained pickles & onions.Using the wide mouth funnel, pour the brine over the pickles, leaving about 2 cms of space from the top.

3. Seal with lids & rings so they are fingertip tight & process in a waterbath for 10 minutes. (Ensure all the jars are completely covered with water.) 

4. Please pay attention to altitudes. I live on lake Ontario, at a low altitude & everything in my processing times is designed for that. If this is your first canning project, read up about your area & what your pressure & process times are. 

5. Make sure your pickles have sealed with a pop! Lids that move up & down need to be reprocessed.

6. WAIT!!!! The act of making pickles is why this blog post took so long to produce. They have to sit in the brine now & actually pickle! 2 weeks minimum before opening. I left mine 2 months to ensure maximum flavour before opening the jars.

 7. Don't waste the brine! When your pickles are done you can toss a couple of boiled eggs in the mix. Wait a day or two for tasty pickled eggs for use in sandwiches!

Now you make some & amaze your friends with these tasty treats.