Tuesday, August 12, 2008

In a pickle...

I decided that this year I wanted to make my own bread & butter pickles, using my MIL's recipe:

8 cups thinly sliced cucumbers (the little ones)
2-1/2 cups thinly sliced onion (peel and slice into rounds)
1/4+ cup salt
2 cups white vinegar
3 cups granulated sugar
2 tsp. celery seed
2 tsp. mustard seed
2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Combine the cucumber, onion and salt in a large pot. Cover and let sit for 3 hours.

After the 3 hours, dump the cucumbers/etc. in a strainer and rinse well. Then dump into an extra-large pot.

Add the vinegar, sugar, celery seed, mustard seed, turmeric and cinnamon. Stir until all the sugar is dissolved and the cucumbers are coated.

Bring it to a boil for 20-30 minutes, until the cucumbers are transparent. Remove from heat and pour into sterilized jars. (Makes approx. four 500ml jars.)

So I went out on Saturday morning to pick up the ingredients that I needed, as well as the canning jars, since I didn't have any. I thought to myself, These cucumbers look rather small. It will probably take quite a few to make 8 cups. Big mistake. It really doesn't take that many.

The result?

A plethora of pickles - 3 batches on Saturday, 2 more on Sunday, and the one last night.

I have learned an important lesson this weekend, and that lesson is this: It is always better to start small and have to get more than to start big and wish you hadn't.

On the plus side - I may never have to make pickles ever again :)

1 comment:

CrazyEnigma said...

The cukes in the sink didn't look like 8 cups. More like 20 cups. Anyways, looks very tasty. Too bad we didn't get to try them the last time we were in Toronto.