Holy Cucumbers Batman!

Our wonderful garden has been producing a mass amount of cucumbers and pickle cucumbers! Which is to my great happiness since I made up my mind to try out canning this year and love summer salads made with cucumbers.




Our garden is cranking out about 3 regular cucumbers a day. This leaves me a lot of cucumbers to work with! I got a recipe for cucumber salad from a friend and looked a little more in depth to it over the net.

I made this batch, but got the recipe from Threedifferentdirections.com.

I started with 4 cucumber. I peeled and sliced them (not too thin, not too thick). Then laid them down on a cookie sheet covered with paper towel and sprinkled sea salt on top. Put them in the fridge for about an hour. This takes a lot of the moisture from the cucumbers out so you don't have a watery salad.

Mix together:

-1/2 cup Sour Cream

-1/4 cup Miracle Whip

-2 tbsp. Dill

-1 tbsp. Lemon Juice

-1/4 tsp. Black Pepper

-1/2 tsp. Sugar

Mix ingredients in bowl, pour over cucumbers, and gently mix until your desire.

~~~

My go to recipe for summer is made with cucumbers and tomatoes.We have tons of tomatoes in our garden, but none of them are red yet. My friend Tarantula gave me some cherry tomatoes from her garden.

Chop up the cucumbers and tomatoes into bite size chunks and put into bowl. Then add Italian dressing (I just eyeball it, but don't add too much and make it soupy), a couple pinches of Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Then mix. This is so fresh and yummy for the hot days!

Here I served my salad with Pineapple BBQ Chicken and stuffing.

~~~

 My canning abilities have definitely been tested this summer! I am really glad that I tried it though. It was something I have been wanting to do and it was surprisingly easy! I was hesitant because I didn't have all of the tools that most of the internet said I needed. Which come to find out, you really don't need all of those anyways! What I did have on hand to use was a very big pot, a big saucepan, tongs, a whisk, and lots of towels and pot holders. I did have to purchase Ball Jars and I dabbled with the pre-made mixes of dill and bread and butter from Ball (which I loved and were really easy!).

These are jars of pickles I made following my Aunt's go-to pickle recipe. They have about 2 more weeks before we can eat them! When I do, I will let you know how they turn out!

~~~

I found a gem in the free book case at the Kalamazoo Public Library when I visited there a couple of weeks ago. It was a fabric covered book and when I opened it, I found out that it was a hand written, personal collection of recipes that a woman named Virginia put together in 1984.

Come to find out there were two pickle recipes in there. One is for refrigerator pickles and the other was for sweet pickles. Both of which are currently chillin' in my fridge.

Refrigerator Pickles

Slice cucumbers and onions with slicer. Put in clean jars.

Mix Brine of:

1/4 cup canning salt

1 Tbsp. Tumeric

2 cups vinegar

3 Tbsp. mustard seed

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup water

Pour over cucumbers and onions in jars. Seal and refrigerate for one month before using. (I also made canned green beans with this recipe)

I like to put either the date they can be opened or the date I made them with a permanent marker on the lid so I don't forget when I can snack on them or open to early and ruin the process.

Sweet Pickles

I added my own jazz to this recipe since I didn't have as many cucumbers and onions as it called for.

Cucumbers and onions sliced to your liking.

1 cup canning salt

Put cucumbers and onions in a larger bowl. Add canning salt and cover with water.  I like to put a large heavy plate on top of the pickles in the water so they are weighed down a bit. I also put plastic wrap over the bowl after putting down the plate. Let this soak overnight.

Drain. Then wash and dry canning jars.

In a large saucepan mix together:

1 1/2 quarts vinegar

1 cup water

4 cups sugar

1/4 cup mustard seed

1 tbsp. tumeric

1 tbsp. allspice

1 tbsp. celery seed

(her recipe called for no water and 6 cups sugar. At this point she says to add pickles to the mixture and cook slowly, but I decided to do something different)

Mix with wire whisk and bring to a boil. Once boiling stir once more and turn off heat. Take canning jars and add 1/4 tsp. Alum Powder (supposed to keep them crispy, although they were pretty flimsy from soaking overnight, but thought I would add it anyways). Add as many pickles and onions as you can add into the jar and then ladle the mixture over the pickles, leaving an inch of room from the top of the jar to the top of mixture. Add lids and tighten enough to where you won't struggle opening them once they are ready. Ball calls this "finger tightened".

 

Got any cucumber recipes? Send them my way! I am sure I will have a lot more to work with!