Today is a biggie! It's the thirtieth wedding anniversary for me and the Chief!
What should we do?
Let's make pickles the LMLD way! (Don't worry, we're celebrating for real! I'm just kidding you.)
When I say I over-intellectualize, pickling could come to mind.
This is an activity grasped and carried out by many housewives. Yet it took me many years to get my courage up to undertake it.
I didn't think I'd poison anyone, necessarily (although I didn't discount the possibility, either). It's more the process that just left me feeling at sea. I had questions. And my questions weren't always answered by what I read.
Maybe you are one of the ones who grew up watching jars being put up, and to you it's second nature to handle a batch of produce without too much crazy looking up of exactly what you should do.
If you are, now would be the time to read a different blog.
But if you are like me, I have here for you a post on how I make bread-and-butter pickles, just as if you were here at my house when I was happening to make a batch of pickes. I'm not trying to replace the canning website or the reference manual, I'm just here to talk you through what I do.
Not because I don't know very well that there are finer sites with better pictures of professionally tested recipes, all at your fingertips on Google. But because sometimes you need someone a little bit less…perfect…to clue you in that if she can do it, so can you!
First, to prevent excessive over-intellectualization, put on a cute vintage apron.
Okay. So. Question number one.
Can you use your dishwasher to sterilize jars? Answer. No.
You can clean your jars in the dishwasher, but you have to sterilize them by boiling them for 10 minutes. (Although I still wonder if using the hi-temp cycle would do it…not for actual canning, but for pickles and jams…)
It's just as easy to set up your sink with a basin of soapy water. I keep my jars and lids out in the garage for the most part.
They get pretty dusty and dirty out there.
It's okay. Just get a clean dishcloth and your nice hot soapy water ready.
When they are washed, rinse them and put them on the clean towel you have ready. There they will stay until you are ready to sterilize them, which also gets them hot in preparation for filling.
{By the way, if you don't know what I mean by clean dishcloth and clean dish towel, I mean clean. To find out how to clean your kitchen linens properly, read my article about my laundry system on the sidebar — it's # 8 in the list.
Short version: warm water (at least), bleach, and a hot dryer or the line. And change them every day! If you are not doing this, your towels and dishcloths are not that clean! Our grandmothers were more careful about this than we are.}
Another question: What is a gallon of cucumbers? Recipes say this type of thing, but I ask you: do cucumbers come in gallons? No. They come in…cucumbers.
Of course I forgot to take a picture of my little harvest of somewhat large cucumbers, but try to visualize about 5 or 6 big ones. Now visualize a gallon of milk. See? Sort of the same, right? Right.
I guess. And I continue to guess each time I do this pickling thing.
Now cut your cucumbers (after giving them a scrub in cold water) into food-processor-chute lengths. Slice them, using little pressure on the pusher to get thinner slices. Dump them into a handy receptacle.
Add your peppers and onions.
Oh, I love my trusty enameled pan!
Not being round, it is so space-efficient, and seems to hold a bit more than a gallon of cucumbers! But who really knows, because are we talking about sliced cucumbers or whole? Ah, the ambiguities!!
Add your pure salt. The reason not to use regular salt is that the anti-caking agents will discolor your pickles.
My secret ingredient (well, my ingredient that was suggested by Putting Food By) for keeping the pickles crunchy is grape leaves,
of which I have an abundant supply in my yard, which is quickly disappearing under grape vines. It actually sort of makes me have an anxiety attack to think about that, so I won't.
Toss everything together, using your clean (not bleached or line dried, but still) hands.
Cover your pan or bowl
and let this stuff sit for at least 12 hours.
Will anything bad happen if it's more like 36 hours? No.
Now, when you are ready, you want to drain all the liquid that will have been produced from this brining process. So get a nice big colander and a clean dish towel.
I like to use an old potato sack towel that is actually a bit too thin to be useful for drying hands or dishes, but perfect for draining things like yogurt or brined vegetables.
Wrap it all up and twist. As you do, the water will drain out. You can leave the bundle there for a bit…
…while you prepare the vinegar syrup.
Different recipes call for different spices, and exactitude in seasoning, unlike in cleaning or processing, is not important. What is important is that you go ahead and put in seasonings you like!
{By the way, try to get your spices from a place that sells them in bulk. You will not believe the difference in price. If you can find one of those ethnic places with big jars and lots of people (preferably ethnic) buying from them, guaranteeing good turnover, you will have it made. Put yours in little jars that you have saved, keeping any excess in a tight zipped bag in the freezer, well marked.}
This recipe, from The Joy of Cooking, calls for this OR that.
I just chuck it all in, except for celery seed, which I never have. I use cumin instead. Turmeric for color.
As that mixture comes to a boil…
start heating up your canning pot (I use a 20 quart pot with a round cake rack in the bottom, which is very make-do):
…wash some things that are making a mess…
…and start getting the actual canning items in place. Put your clean rings and tops in a pot to heat up (you don't want to boil them).
Heat up a kettle of water to add to your pot as needed.
Find your funnel and your tongs and your lifter.
Also ladle.
Make sure they are clean. When that water is boiling,
chuck the things in for 10 minutes. When you take them out, be careful how you drain them, because the steam can burn you. I tend to use the tongs, braced against the rim of the pot.
This is my whole set-up viewed from one angle.
Just organize yourself as you work, with plenty of cleared-off counters draped in clean towels, and you will be good.
Try to work in a flow, from one side to the other. Flow gives you a sense of calm and control while you get the job done. You can always stop and assess your flow!
I have the spices and the jars on the left of the sink. I'm washing and draining to the right. My stove is to the right of the sink, so my sterilized jars go on a towel on the counter to the right of the stove.
During the ten minutes' time that the jars are sterilizing and the vinegar mixture has come to a boil, you can put your brined cucumbers and vegetables into the pot. Now remember, you aren't aiming at cooking your pickles now. You just want to bring them up to temperature so that they will go in the hot jars and then into the boiling water bath without any shocks, which could cause the glass to break.
When I was dumping the veggies in, the corner of my towel got into the vinegar mixture with the turmeric. I decided to go ahead and dip the whole thing in there in case it doesn't wash and bleach out the next time, and if not, this will be my official pickle-making dish towel!
Give the whole mixture a gentle stir, but don't mash the cucumbers. When your jars are ready, so should your veggies be.
Put a couple of paper towels next to your pot in a way that drapes over the space in between the stove and the counter, so that hot sticky vinegary liquid doesn't leak down there, which it totally will, don't kid yourself.
Using your funnel and your ladle, fill the jar with the mixture. Now, here is another question: how will you have the right amount of liquid and solid in there? and how do you know how many jars, exactly?
You don't, even if your recipe says “makes six pints” or something like that. You need a good supply of jars. When I make preserves I am constantly toting jars back and forth from the garage to the kitchen. Those things have been washed multiple times (and gotten dirty multiple times) before I actually use them.
I like to have different sizes. For one thing, sometimes you want a big jar of pickles, and sometimes you are giving some to an elderly person who will not finish more than a pint in a long while. Second, a few smaller jars come in handy at the end when you are not sure how much you have left but don't want to stop or end up with half a jar (which won't process correctly anyway).
You will just keep filling jars so that the veggies are immersed in the liquid. A small spoon is handy for pushing cucumbers down and removing extras that don't quite fit. You can also swap out a few big ones for some little ones that fit better. It's your jar, you make it work! Own the jar!
After running that little spoon around the edges of each jar to get the air out, wipe the rims with a paper towel to make sure that you have a non-sticky surface for the lid. Get your lids out of the pan, making sure that they are not stuck together! Pop a lid on each jar and screw down, not tightly, a rim on each lid.
I do these steps all at once, not as a I fill each jar, because I find that I forget something otherwise. I get the lids screwed down and then realize there are bubbles or the tops are sticky.
Place as many jars as will comfortably fit in the pot, put the cover on, and process for the allotted time.
If you are not able to get all your jars in at once, keep the others warm until their turn (or wait to fill them, keeping the jars warm in the oven and the pickle mixture warm in the pot).
These quart jars are technically too big for my pot, according to Putting Food By.
They only just make it with an inch of water bubbling on top, and the water often boils right over. But for pickles I chance it and always get a good seal. I wouldn't use them for straight up canning of, say, tomatoes or pears.
In the end you will have a bit of mixture left.
Get a clean jar and fill it with these leftovers and keep them in the fridge. You can add to a jar from a previous batch.
Here is the recipe for my take on delicious bread-and-butter pickles, as adapted from The Joy of Cooking (1975):
Makes about 12 pints (I'm not so sure, JoC! Maybe I didn't have a gallon of cucumbers after all (and I didn't use the 6 onions called for, but if I had had more, I wouldn't have had enough syrup…I'd say more like 8 pints…)
Bread-and-Butter Pickles
3 large yellow onions
1 red pepper
1 green pepper
3 grape leaves (if you can find them — feel free to come over here and pick some!)
Slice the veggies in the food processor. You want the peppers and onions to be chopped, or maybe you like them in slices, it doesn't matter!
Put them in a container that can go in the fridge without taking up too much room. Toss everything with 1/2 cup pure salt. The cookbook says to weigh everything down, but I don't think this is necessary.
Chill for at least 12 hours. Rinse. (I didn't rinse, my bad. I don't mind salty though.) Drain thoroughly.
Prepare the syrup:
4 cups cider vinegar (I use white vinegar because it's cheaper)
4 cups white or brown sugar (I use half and half)
1 1/2 tsp. turmeric or allspice (heck, use them both, they're good!)
2 tablespoons mustard seed (I used a tablespoon of pickling spice someone gave me, which has mustard seed in it, as well as a tablespoon of mustard seed)
1 1/2 teaspoons celery seed (I use cumin instead, never having celery seed on hand)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or 1-inch stick cinnamon
Bring these ingredients to a boil. Add the vegetables gradually with very little stirring. Heat to the scalding point but do not let them boil. (The point here is that they have to be hot so as not to break or cool down the hot jars, but you don't want mushy pickles, hmmm?).
Pour the pickles into hot sterile jars. seal and process 15 minutes in a boiling-water bath, for pints.
Now, what's not to understand about this recipe? You must think I'm pretty silly! 🙂
Thanks to Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam for the link!
Tracy says
Wow, Leila- what patience you have to take us through the whole process! Organizing my kitchen for canning was one of the biggest challenges I faced when I started (so many things need to be happening at once!)Anyhow, I wanted to tell you that I talked with our county extension, and you are right- you need to boil those jars to sterilize them, however, you only really need to sterilize them for jams that have a small (or no) processing time! The processing of boiling-water or pressure canning kills all of the bacteria present in the jars, making sterilizing ahead of time unnecessary for things like peaches, pears, etc, that spend a long time in the processing part of the equation. Of course, they still want you to wash those jars in hot soapy water, and keep them hot until you fill them with the food. Of course, research it and call your own extension office- but man, I don't mind missing that step if it's unecessary! Happy canning!
Dawn says
What I love about your blog is your no-nonsense, practical approach to making a wonderful home, full of gifts (pickles for the elderly!) that are ready along with the provisions you've made for your family!Thanks for the step by step pickle tutorial and for your collaborative family blog!
skoots1mom says
i used to love watching my mom and granny canning…we used to make pickled relish, peaches, pears, pear preserves, peach preserves, pickled okra and sometimes pickled watermelon rind…absolutely love red pepper relish…fantastic job putting it all together for us…i just may have to make some of these for my hubby…the sweet pickles are his favorite.thx 4 sharing…oh,Happy Anniversary!!
Crafty P says
First off, Happy Anniversary! Second, I so wish I lived nearby to come and learn this process and have such an "expert" to show me the ropes. It just seems daunting.Lastly- love, love, love the wedding pictures! Would love to see more of the church!
Anonymous says
Thanks for the gift of showing us your process of canning Pickles. I can smell the aroma!Happy Anniversay. We all can tell how much you are loved.Christine
Rachel says
I picked up the JoC at a garage sale! Who knew I was holding a treasure. Congrats on the Anniversary. 🙂
Liz says
Ok. I am WAY beyond impressed with this post. Hats off to you my friend! And I love pickles, so, I've always wanted to do this. But I havent, b/c I'm lazy. But that's another topic. :)Hugs,Liz
Kathryn says
I also do not sterilize the jars except for jam…I grew up Mennonite and worked along with my mom canning every summer, and now I can pasta sauce, applesauce, beans, jams, and pickles. Another easy pickle recipe is Dilly Beans, they are absolutely delish! I use the Ball canning book, and entirely forgot that Joy of Cooking has pickle recipes–Bread and Butter Pickles are one of my husband's favorites! Thanks for sharing and Happy Anniversary!
Anonymous says
The pickle pictures are wonderful — but I don't think I'm there yet!My mother used to make pickles, probably 6 and 7 decades ago!! She NEVER made them when I could remember!Susan (DE)
Decadent Housewife says
MMMMmmm! Can smell that wonderful spicy kitchen all the way over here.
Ferrers Locke says
Sterilising jars as done by us Britons (we spell it differently, too): Wash jars in hot water (if the jars are clean, I generally use a little vinegar in the water, rather than detergent), dry with a clean tea-towel, place them in a cold oven, and heat to 150 degrees C – just over 300 Fahrenheit. Much easier than all that boiling.Another transatlantic difference: for pickles, I'd just pour hot vinegar straight over the cold vegetables, and not bother with processing afterwards. Vinegar is strongly antiseptic, after all.
Anny says
This is how I was taught to make pickles as well-without the cooking phase and processing. 🙂 The only difference being they need to sit for a 3-5 weeks before they’re ready. Great post! They look delicious!
Leila says
Thanks for the pickle love and anniversary wishes!Tracy, Kathryn, and Ferrars: You are right! And this is where the "conversation in the kitchen" method beats the "read every book" method!One can certainly skip the boiling of jars step if going on to process. This shows how hard it is for me, speaking of processing, to be clear on what to do…I do a boiling water bath for my jams, too (as the directions state on the pectin). (So I never put up things without processing them.)I figure that I have the water boiling anyway for the final step, so it's no biggie to sterilize the jars. Maybe in the future I will skip this step…It's true that the vinegar will preserve the pickles, but not the way heat does. You would get the lacto-fermentation (which preserves to a large extent)– and I'm interested in this for sure for other reasons — but not the final killing of bacteria and forming of a seal.And there I think one is on shaky ground if a seal does form (from the heat of the jar and pickles) — because then you have an anaerobic environment, which could lead to botulism…as opposed to a traditional fermentation, which would be in a crock or other receptacle with air exchange (aerobic)…But what do I know about it?I just boil the heck out of my jars…
Ferrers Locke says
Continuing the conversation, in part because I'm fascinated by the different ways we do things, & how they have evolved.I bow to your superior wisdom on heat as preserving agent: not something I know much about, I have to admit. However, vinegar is itself a potent bactericide, so I'd expect no material difference in populations of nasties. (Certainly, British cooks have been doing it this way for a long time, and I've never heard of pickle-related botulism. That said, 5% acidity is the minumum required; it may be that processing allows one to use lower acidity vinegars.)It makes sense that heat is needed for seal formation with the Kilner-type jars you're using: I normally use screw-top jars (with plasticised lids) for pickling, & the heat of the vinegar creates the seal. Same for jams.I'll try it your way some day, though, & see whether the end product differs.& belatedly, congratulations on your anniversary.
Leila says
Hi Ferrars! It's just like we're here in the kitchen hashing it out. What I love to do!I have no superior wisdom. I have only fruitless and bootless mulling over all the information……it's binary, I think: Preserve with salt and vinegar (and/or whey), or preserve with heat. The latter requires complete sterilization (and can include salt and vinegar and other ingredients for flavor's sake) because it's anaerobic, and botulism thrives on an absence of oxygen.So, if your low-heat preserves were ALSO sealed (because the things you put in were hot and caused a vacuum to form), you might have trouble.This is the same reason for the warning against preserving things like garlic in oil: the lack of oxygen (but absence of processing) can allow the botulism spores to thrive.So one must EITHER preserve in vinegar, salt, and/or whey, but with air exchange, OR one must sterilize and seal (killing botulism spores).Hence, I conclude that it would be okay, as the other commenters said, to wash things thoroughly in hot soapy water, transfer to immaculately clean towel, fill with hot mixture, and process in a hot water bath for the prescribed length of time — and NOT sterilize the jars first as I have been doing……but I do it because the water is boiling anyway and it gives me a further sense of confidence.OR it would be okay to put up those pickles in a jar or crock that is not tightly sealed, keep in a cool place, and enjoy — the fermentation would keep the bacteria level safe.But it's not okay to keep them if they are sealed without sterilization/processing. That seems to be the gist of what Putting Food By is saying in its admonitions to heat everything properly.But I might be completely wrong. It's all so hard to wrap one's mind around…
Ferrers Locke says
I think I see – one can sterilise first, and then allow the seal to form, or sterilise and seal by processing; but not omit sterilisation altogether. In that case, I think our different methods add up alike, but from different angles of approach.(Only on the internet could I have conversation like this. Thanks.)
Margo says
to add to the Ferrers convo:I have made dill pickles for a few years. I make the jars hot in my oven, lids and rings hot, and brine hot. The jars do not need to be processed (we called it water-bathed around here) because of the vinegar. I haven't ever had a jar not seal this way. Everything else I water bath. Also, like Kathryn, I grew up (and still am) Mennonite so I am around canning and preserving all the time. I love my heritage!
Rona's Home Pag says
My husband and I love Bread and Butter Pickles. Canning has always scared me. But I might give it a try one day after reading your post.
KJ says
I know this is an old post but I am wondering if you still are doing it… the blue part on the canning tongs needs to grab the jars so your handle is the black part of them – it took a bit of time for me to get that part – thanks for a lovely blog – I am slowly but surely reading through all the posts – such a delight!