How To Can Pickles

Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe : Taste of Southern. Follow these easy, step- by- step, photo illustrated instructions for making and canning your very own Bread and Butter Pickles. You’ll never buy pickles again, once you’ve made your own. See just how quick and easy it is to make these delicious pickles right in your own kitchen. This recipe can be completed in one day. Printable recipe included.…Award Winning Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe: 2.

First Place Winner at the North Carolina State Fair.…Growing up Gordon, we always had sweet pickles on hand. Mama would make a big batch of them each year, enough to last us through the cold Winter months, and back into Spring when fresh cucumbers would become available again. We just always had pickles on hand. Mama was well known for her pickles.

She used the juice from them in all kinds of dishes she would make. From Potato Salad to Chicken Salad, Deviled Eggs to Cole Slaw, a little pickle juice and some chopped up pickles, always found their way into each and every one. Mama would always call on me to figure out the ratio of sugar she would need for the number of pounds of cucumbers she was planning to use. I always figured she could have done it herself, but I always felt like I was doing some major part in “deciphering out” just what was needed. I would check, then double- check, all my figures to be sure I was getting it right. Then, Mama would write it down until she was ready to start adding the sugar. Having said that, these are NOT my mother’s pickles.

Mama never made Bread and Butter Pickles at our house that I can recall. I don’t have any memories of her making these, dill, or any other kind, except her special sweet pickles.

How To Can PicklesHow To Can Pickles

Can green tomatoes be pickled in a cold pack method?? I use Dill pickle mix and just fill the jars with assorted veggies and pour the bubbling brine over into the. These pickles are fermented and cured for several weeks, much like sauerkraut. During curing, colors and flavors change and acidity increases. Hello everyone, my problem is that when we do pickles we use vinegar and pasuerize them so that we can store them till/through winter without spoiling in a storage. This recipe for homemade, naturally fermented pickles is simple to make, and leaves you with fantastically nourishing crunchy pickle.

Refrigerator Dill Pickles (Like Claussen’s) Super Crisp!! There's no sugar in these. I'm not a fan of sweet pickles. *Tip. I used small/med garden fresh. Can You Freeze Sweet Potatoes After They Have Been Boiled & Mashed?

Mama’s pickles took weeks to prepare, and several months before they reached their prime flavor. The work was certainly worth the finished product as far as I was concerned. On the other hand, Bread and Butter Pickles can be made in just a day or so, and come to good flavor within a week or two. Pickles are the reason I got into canning in the first place.

I can almost remember the day that I knew I was removing the final couple of pickles from that last jar that Mama had made. After suffering from several strokes, she was now in a nursing home, and her canning days, and pickle making days were over. She just wasn’t able to take care of herself any longer, and certainly wasn’t able to do any more canning and preserving. Mama spent four years in that nursing home. Can You Freeze Clams there. I could write an entire book on that segment of life. For many years, I thought about trying to make some of her pickles, but I’d never get around to it. The notebook with her handwritten recipe for making her pickles, along with the directions for how much sugar to add to how many pounds of pickles, was now somewhere at my sisters house.

Years passed, then my sister passed away. No one seems to know where that little notebook went, and I’ve not seen it since the last time Mama asked me to decipher out the amount of sugar she would need, as we sat around her kitchen table. If there is one handwritten recipe I’d really like to have in my possession… it would be that one. Finally, one year I pulled out the copy of how Mama made her pickles, and finally made some of my own. They turned out great, and I was really proud of myself for finally making them. I made them again the following year, and ended up having to throw a big batch away when something went wrong and the pickles messed up. I’ve been playing, tinkering, and toying with that recipe for years.

I have good results some times, and bad results another. I don’t recall that Mama ever had to throw any of hers away. I’m still trying to figure out what goes wrong some times. Back in 2. 01. 2, I made a batch of Mama’s Sweet Pickles, and then I made these Bread and Butter Pickles. I entered a jar of each in our North Carolina State Fair.

Both, won First Place, but I was more excited about Mama’s recipe winning than I was the Bread and Butter. Mama never entered anything into our local fair.

I don’t know why, she loved to cook and you just didn’t visit our house without her insisting that you have a “bite to eat.”I think she would be happy just to know that I was making her pickles, and that I was trying to keep some of the old traditions alive. Trying to preserve some of the things she taught me. I’ve often wished that I could take her recipe for pickles to market. They just take so long to make, I doubt it would ever be something that could be made and made profitable. Perhaps one day, when I get comfortable enough with making them myself, I’ll post the recipe here on Taste of Southern.

In the meantime, I do hope you’ll give these Bread and Butter Pickles a try. They’re much easier to make, and you’ll be happy with the final results once you’ve made them. The photo’s and steps below are the actual photos that I took while making the batch that I entered into the State Fair.

I didn’t get the recipe posted online that year, but it did get posted on the Our State Magazine website. Now, I’m happy to be able to share it with you here on Taste of Southern. I was told by the folks at the North Carolina State Fair, that they had 2. Bread and Butter Pickle category alone. I’m not sure why they picked mine as the First Place Winner, but I’m glad they did. So, if you’re ready to make some pickles of your own, get out the canning equipment, get in the kitchen, and… Let’s Get Cooking!…Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe:  You’ll need these ingredients.…Place the cucumbers in a sink filled with cold water.

Gently rub each cucumber by hand to remove any dirt or other particles that might be attached. DO NOT use a vegetable brush to scrub the cucumbers. Drain off the dirty water when finished.…Gently rinse the cucumbers again, under cool running water. Place in a colander and let drain.…Cut about 1/4 inch off of each end of the cucumbers. Discard the end pieces.…Slice each cucumber into 1/4 inch or thicker slices. If you slice them really thin, they will shrivel and be much softer when finished.

Slice them a bit thicker and they’ll tend to be a little crispier.…Next, slice up the onions. Just looking at this picture makes my eyes water… how about you?…Place the sliced cucumbers in a large pot. I use my enameled canning pot for this part. Just don’t use Aluminum.

Stainless Steel or Teflon coated will work well.…Add the sliced onions on top of the cucumbers.…Gently stir the cucumber and onion slices together with your hand.…Sprinkle the top with the Canning and Pickling Salt.

A Simple Recipe for Homemade Natural Fermented Pickles. When making homemade brined pickles, there seems to be many people that struggle with the process, usually resulting in soggy pickles that are not crunchy at all. Some swear by adding grape leaves to retain a good crunch and others add whey to speed up the lacto- fermentation process. This age old practice is a simple, salt brine cure set out at room temperature for days, weeks, or even months. The process of fermentation creates an ideal condition for the lactic acid- forming bacteria existing on the food surface to feed upon the sugar naturally present in the food. The lactic acid will continue to grow (or ferment) until enough has formed to kill any bacteria present that would otherwise cause the food to spoil. The end result is a product filled with lactobacilli which produces numerous helpful enzymes as well as antibiotic and anti- carcinogenic substances.

As far as flavor, the salt brine naturally sours the pickles and gives them a fantastic crunch. During the summer when the farmers markets are exploding with fresh vegetables, I like to naturally ferment many different varieties of pickles. I pickle whatever I have on hand, but generally my families favorites are asparagus, green beans with radishes, pickles, beets, cabbage, and cayenne peppers for hot sauce. Small Batch Preserving. What I especially love about natural salt brine cures, or fermented pickles, is that they are easy to make and work well in small batches. It’s easy to fall into a mentality that we need a large quantity of fruit or vegetables to put up at one time. For me, it’s so much easier and relaxing to put up a small amount of jars weekly. By the end of the summer I usually have a fridge filled with fermented vegetables that we eat into the winter.

I’ve been using this same pickle recipe for the past few years. It’s very simple and relies on salt. I don’t like to use whey in my ferments as I’ve found if you add enough salt and allow the pickle to ferment for at least two weeks up to two months, the end result is sensational.

Now that Big Brother is 7, he’s become our home pickle master which has been a tremendous help to me. I love this getting older bit! Homemade Natural Fermented Pickles. Homemade pickled cucumbers are a cinch to make and doesn’t take long to prepare at all. My number one secret to a crunchy pickle is to use freshly picked cucumbers from the farmers market or picked from your own backyard. The fresher the crunchier! I always make my pickles as soon as I get home from the market. I don’t like to let them sit in the fridge for a few days as I feel this will impact that crunch factor.

Fresh is best. After I get the cucs home, Big Brother and I give them a good scrubbing to remove any dirt particles and flower ends. We then layer up the bottom half of a quart sized mason jar with the larger cucumbers. Big Brother then cuts the ends of two cloves of garlic and gives them a good smash with the back of his knife. Into the mason jar we add the garlic, 2 bay leaves, and just about a tablespoon of pickling spice.

We then top the jar with as many more cucs as we can fit and add fresh dill. I then fill the jar with a salt brine and allow them to ferment for two weeks. I like to burp the jar after a week. Burping a jar means opening the lid and allowing the gasses produced from the fermenting vegetables to escape.

You can taste a pickle at this time to see if it suits your taste buds. Be aware that after two weeks, the water gets cloudy.

This is completely normal. The end result is a pickle that tastes as it did in days past. Naturally sour, a bit fizzy, and crunchy. To see what the fizz of fermentation looks like, check out my video here. These pickles definitely taste different than a vinegar pickle, but I absolutely love them this way and I’m sure you will to. Fresh Salsa Recipe. A Simple Recipe for Homemade Natural Fermented Pickles.

Homemade Natural Fermented Pickles are simple to make, taste sensational, and are nourishing to our bodies. Ingredients: 2. 4 (or so) small 4"- 5" pickling cucumbers. Method: Properly clean 3 quart sized mason jars. Gently clean and remove flower ends from cucumbers. To each quart sized mason jar, stack the bottom with as many cucumbers as you can fit. Divide the pickling spice between the jars. To each jar, add 2 garlic cloves, and 2 bay leaves.

Add a good amount of dill to each jar, then fill each jar with as many more cucumbers as you can fit. Do not allow the cucumbers to go up into the band area.

Make sure there's 1" headspace between the top of the jar and the lid. On the stovetop, heat 1 quart of filtered water with 6 tbls of salt until it dissolves. Once the salt dissolves into the water, remove from heat. Add 1 1/3 cups of the salt solution brine to each jar.

Fill the remainder of the jars with enough filtered water to cover all the ingredients. Place a lid on each jar and give it a good shake to mix the water and salt brine solution. Make sure to check after shaking that all the ingredients are submerged. Place the jar in a cool dark place for 2 weeks making sure to burp the jar after 7 days. Copyright, A Little Bit of Spain in Iowa. Do you enjoy making naturally fermented pickles?

Please share with me your favorite vegetables to ferment.