Friday, July 31, 2015

Pickle Party

Yesterday afternoon I stared at my garden produce, trying to come up with a plan of action. I had 7 pounds of pickling cucumbers, 7 pounds of zucchini, and 3 pounds of green beans.

I started in on a pickle recipe but then realized I needed to go to the store for an ingredient. So I rounded up my recipes and went off to the store with a list.

(Side note: we had 7 items on our list, why was that so unbearably boring to my daughter???)

Armed with the proper ingredients I had a pickling party! Since all three recipes were new to me, I made small batches. There's nothing more disappointing than a huge batch of something that tastes horrible!

I got 4 jars of everything. I made: ginger garlic pickles, lemon spiced bean pickles, and honey-sweetened sweet pickles. Oh, I got four of everything but one jar of my sweet pickles didn't seal. :(


(Side note: the camera is carefully positioned so that you see none of the clutter in the kitchen or dining room! It's been a crazy week!)

Yum! I can't wait to try these pickles! I love trying new recipes when I'm canning. I always try to make sure I have all the basics covered before I start doing my experimenting, but I ended up with regular pickles still on my shelf from last year so I figured, why not? I like ginger and garlic, and lemony beans sounds good...we shall see!

Oh, and the zucchini made its way into bread and then what was left (a lot!) was given to friends. I still have about one pound of beans left which we'll have for dinner tonight. Of course, there is probably more in the garden to pick, but that will be for another day!

2 comments:

Melissa Joy said...

I have the blessing of being a gleaner of sorts for a friend of mine whose garden is about four times as big as she & her hubby need. :) Yesterday I came home with more cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, carrots, and corn than I know what to do with! What a blessing! We are eating tomatoes like candy, and I tried two different "quick pickle" recipes two quarts of sliced cucumbers to see what we think of those. Corn and carrots will get eaten one by one. It's all the squash that I am uncertain about. If you have out-of-the-box suggestions (we do lots of spaghetti squash with cheese or marinara; sauteed yellow squash and zucchini; zucchini bread), I would love to know. :) I'm also trying to figure out what to do with what I think are patty pan squash!

Tammy said...

What a blessing! You can pickle pretty much anything, including squash like zucchini and even pumpkin. I haven't ever done that though. Here's a post that might be helpful to you: http://foodinjars.com/2012/08/six-ways-to-preserve-zucchini/

I have frozen shredded zucchini before and it freezes nicely.

I don't know if you're still eating gluten free, but if not, this is one of my favorite ways to eat zucchini: http://www.food.com/recipe/moms-chocolate-zucchini-cake-2767 chocolate cake of course! It's a very light dessert - not too sweet, and nice and moist. So yummy.

Also, roasted or grilled zucchini is delicious! And roasted winter squash (like butternut, I don't know if you have that available to you) is awesome!

As for the patty pan squash, not sure since I haven't ever used those.

Have fun cooking!