They're Not a Peck, but They're Pickled

Last night, after a hiatus of a few years, I got around to doing one of the many things I'm known for: making garlic dill pickles. I had been wanting to make them, but I just hadn't got around to it, so it was rather convenient when my grandmother phoned me, saying that one of her farmer friends had a fresh crop of pickling cucumbers, and would I be interested.

The cukes were much larger than normal, but that didn't stop my urge to pickle. They've just been cut into spears instead. Actually, they look much prettier in the jar that way.

Anyways...

The kitchen, and quite possibly the entire main floor, was smelling strongly of vinegar and garlic, and so were my fingers by the end of the night (nothing a little lemon juice mixed with warm water can't fix). The vinegar smell gets annoying after a while, but the clove of garlic I'd accidentally dropped into the pot with the jars (I put the jars in a big pot with hot water to keep them warm so they'll seal easier) toned down the garlic enough to make it smell quite good.

After two hours of peeling garlic, stuffing cloves, dill, and cucumbers into jars, I had my first batch of pickles made in at least three years. Ten jars total. As they were cooling, every so often, mum and I would hear a pop as they fully sealed. I am seriously considering making another batch of Tilly's Dillys by the end of the week.

Pretty, aren't they?

If you'd like to make your own dill pickles, here's what you need, and how to do it:

4 quarts pickling cucumbers
fresh dill (or 1 tsp/ quart minimum of dill seed if you can't find any fresh)
8 cups water
4 cups vinegar
1/4 cup pickling (coarse) salt
garlic

Clean the cucumbers and soak them in cold water in the fridge for a few hours. While the cucumbers are soaking, make the brine. Add the water, vinegar, and salt to a pot, and bring it to a boil, stirring often. In another small pot, put your lids (the part with the seal, not the ring), add water, and bring them to a boil (they'll seal better this way). In another large pot, place in as many jars as you can fit, standing up, with some boiling water in the pot to keep the jars hot (will seal better, and the heat of the brine won't break the jars this way. And if you pull them fresh out of the hot dishwasher, this will help too, along with the hot water). In the jars, add your garlic, dill, and pickles. Very carefully pour the brine over top (a funnel is really handy for this, and so is a soup ladle). Don't fill the jars all the way to the top, just enough to cover the cucumbers. Carefully add the lids and rings. Let them cool, and listen for the lids to pop. Ta da, you've just made garlic dill pickles. Now find a nice cool place to keep them, like a cold cellar, or the back of the fridge, and forget about them for a few months. The recipe is supposed to yield six 1-litre jars, but to get ten jars, the recipe had to be doubled. It happens. 

Of course, you don't have to use garlic. Find ways to make the recipe your own. I encourage it. If there's a little something you want to add or omit, give it a try. You might prefer the outcome to my kill-you-with-garlic pickles. You can probably use the brine to pickle all sorts of other things too.

Happy pickling!