Dill Pickles

We grew our own pickling cucumbers this year, so I could make fresh and hopefully crisper, organic dill pickles.

Dill pickles

Dill Pickle Recipe

This recipe is easy and you can add as much or as little garlic as you like. I wouldn't mess around with the brine ratio too much due to proper ph levels needed for safe storage, but you can tweak the spices and garlic to suit your taste.

Pickling cucumbers on digital scale

Ingredients

6 lbs pickling cucumbers
5 cups vinegar
5 cups water
7 tbsp kosher salt
18 garlic cloves
9 tsp dill seeds
4 1/2 tsp black peppercorns
5 large grape leaves

Dill pickle ingredients

Directions

Wash cucumbers and slice into wedges or slices.

Cucumbers

Bring the water, vinegar and salt to a boil to make a brine.

Peel the garlic and add 2 cloves to each sterilized jar. Add 1 tsp or a few sprigs of dill weed to each jar along with 1/2 tsp peppercorns.

Dill pickles

Pack the jars with the cucumber wedges, trimmed to about 1/2 inch from the top of the jars. Pack half a grape leaf in each jar to maintain the crispness of the pickles.

Fill each jar with the brine and place the lids and screw on the bands finger tight.

Pickle Processing

Process 12 minutes in a hot water bath. NO LONGER!.Let set at least one week before opening in order for the flavors to be absorbed. This part is torturous.

Tips for Crispy Pickles

I have never actually made crispy pickles, at least not to my satisfaction unless this year's batch was more successful than the past two years. Last year I left them in the water bath too long. This year I did better, taking them out after 12 minutes. I also used the grape leaves this year, and they are supposed to help keep pickles crispy. Some recipes say to use alum but apparently (or so I read somewhere) the FDA has banned that for some reason. I intend to research that a bit, since I have alum in my pantry and had intended to use it. Bit didn't. Because of the FDA.

Probably the most believable way to make the crispest pickles is to make them with fresh cucumbers, within hours of picking them, which is what I did. Hopefully between that and the grape leaves I will have more success than last year.

So, I'm sure they're no match for Bick's as crisp factor goes, but in flavor I bet they have them beat and here's hoping for crispIER.

That jar on the far left is Lily's

Grape Jelly

Grape jelly

Grape Jelly is not vegan because unlike blueberry, strawberry, raspberry or blackberry jam, you need Certo to make it gel. There is a plant-based version, but it's not something I can find here in town so I will probably need to order it online. For now, I guess I'll use the last couple boxes of Certo I have in my pantry.

Grapes on the vine

Grape arbor

Grape Jelly Recipe

Grape jelly is super easy to make but can make a huge mess.

Remove all the grapes off the stems and remove any green grapes. Rinse and transfer to a pot.

Bring to boil:
3 lbs grapes

Heat to a roiling boil then cook for 10 - 15 minutes, until grapes split and seeds separate from the fruit.

4.5 lbs of Concord grapes

Wrap in cheesecloth and hang overnight to drain juice.

Grape juice draining through linen

It's important not to squeeze the cheesecloth or linen while the grapes are draining. Just let them strain through on their own, overnight if possible. Squeezing can yield a cloudy result; we want the jelly to look like clear jewels.

Straining grape juice through linen

Combine:
4 cups grape juice
1 package pectin

Bring to a boil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Stir while at a rolling boil for one minute. Turn heat down to low.

Stir in:
6 1/2 cups sugar

Let sugar dissolve, then remove from heat. Pour into sterilized Mason jars. Process in water for 15 minutes.

Grape jelly

Strawberry Jam

This recipe for strawberry jam couldn't be easier. We used a combination of Kent and Alpine strawberries and it turned out amazing. Tastes so...strawberry-ish. Summery. Brings back the sticky sweetness of June. And is fabulous on homemade oatmeal-molasses bread.

Strawberry jam on oatmeal bread

Grow Some Strawberries

Strawberries are remarkably easy to grow, and seem to be pretty disease- and pest-resistant. I think anyone with a 4' square area of space could grow them.

Kent strawberries growing in the garden

There is nothing like picking a sun-ripened warm strawberry off the vine and dining right in your garden either. If you've never tried it, you should. We ate plenty and used plenty, but also set some aside to make our jam.

Bowl of Kent strawberries

Strawberry Jam Recipe 

I found this simple old-fashioned recipe in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving cookbook. It's filled with lots of great recipes and canning tips. It doesn't have my beloved Lady Ashburnham pickle recipe, but I forgive it for that since I understand that's really a regional recipe.

Ingredients
6 cups strawberries
6 cups sugar

Directions
Bring strawberries and sugar to a slow boil. (I had the stove set to 4 and it took about 15 - 20 minutes to begin boiling) and mash strawberries while stirring. Boil rapidly until they begin to gel. I boiled hard for about 15 minutes, maybe 20. I used the gel test.

Berries & sugar cooking

Remove from stove, skim off the foam and ladle into jars. This made 6-1/2 250 ml jars (3-1/4 pints).

Bottled strawberry jam

Gel Test

The gel test is when you spoon a drop of jam onto a saucer and place it in the freezer for one minute. When you remove it, slowly push your finger through the jam. If there is resistance (it wrinkles when you push it), it is at the gel stage and ready to bottle. This is an old trick my Mom taught me back in the learning days. It probably goes by other names and has variations, such as length of time in the freezer, but this is a tried and true method and probably better than just telling you how long to boil. Give it a test. As a bonus, you can then lick your finger and have your first taste of the jam you're making!

Laundry Detergent

We discovered you can make your own laundry detergent so we started saving our detergent bottles and finally made some. We've made two batches of it now, and we find it just as good as store-bought so we strongly recommend it to anyone who is tired of wasting money on laundry detergent. 

Re-filled Bottles of Laundry Detergent

Ingredients

2 bars laundry soap, grated (I used Sunlight - smells lovely and lemony)
2 1/2 cups Borax
2 1/2 cups washing soda
20 liters of hot water

Directions

Melt the grated bar of laundry soap with 4 L water. Mine came to a simmer and I allowed it to just simmer until the soap had all melted, about 10 minutes.

Add borax, washing soda and 16 L hot tap water to a large container like the bin in my pic.

Then add the melted soap to the bin as well and stir it in. Let sit overnight (it will gel). Bottle it into rinsed-out containers.

Bin of Detergent

To Bottle or Not Bottle

We actually didn't need to wait until we went through 9 more bottles of store-bought detergent just to have bottles to put it in. If you have a spot to keep it, you can keep it right in the bin or bucket you mixed it in and scoop it out of that. Or, you can ask family members and friends to start saving their detergent bottles for you and you would probably have enough in a couple of weeks.

This is a good investment! Ours lasts for about 5 months.

Sweet & Tangy Salsa

Sweet & Tangy Salsa

Ingredients

8 cups tomatoes, chopped
4 cups onion, peeled & chopped (3 medium onions)
4 cups peppers, chopped
6 jalapenos, diced
16 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup pickling vinegar
3 tbsp pickling salt
1 cup sugar
2 limes (juiced)
2 tsp cumin

Salsa ingredients

Directions

Boil for 15 minutes and pour into sterilized jars, then do a 15 minute water bath. Makes about 6 pints.

Salsa cooking

Bottled salsa

Lady Ashburnham Pickles

Lady Ashburnham Pickles

Who the Heck is Lady Ashburnham, Anyway?

Apparently, Lady Ashburnham was a Frederictonian who was employed as a telephone operator and her distinctive voice charmed a British royal and they wound up getting married. He became the Duke despite being like 6th in line, but they weren't really in favor with the Royal Family who "encouraged" him to bring his bride back to New Brunswick where they were basically socialites in Fredericton. The pickles were actually her sister's, not hers, but she gets the credit for them through their name. Not the coolest story, but it answers the question, Who the heck is Lady Ashburnham?

The Recipe

Ingredients
6 large cucumbers, chopped fine
4 cups onions, chopped
1 red pepper (apparently not part of the original recipe, but makes them prettier)
1/4 cup kosher salt
2 cups vinegar
2 cups white sugar
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp dry mustard
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed

Directions

Day 1:
Wash your cucumbers and pepper. Peel and dice your cucumbers and onions, and chop the red pepper fine. Place all vegetables in a large bowl, sprinkle the salt over them and set overnight, covered with a clean cloth.

Peeling cucumbers

Onions

Peeled and de-pulped cucumbers

Some people really chop the cucumbers fine, but I cut mine about 1/4" - 1/2" cubes.

Cucumbers & onions

Cucumbers & onions sitting in salt overnight

Day 2:
Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes.

Pickles cooking

Sterilize 6 500-ml jars and soak lids and bands in hot water for about 15 minutes (don't boil).

Preparing the lids and bands

Sterilizing the jars

Ladle the pickles into the jars, cover with lids and screw the bands on finger-tight. Most of the recipes don't say to, but I always place them in a sterile sink and pour a kettle of boiling water over them. For good measure.

Bottled Lady Ashburnhams

Peach Mango Salsa

Peach Mango Salsa

Making Salsa

We grew just enough tomatoes to make a batch of salsa this year. We tried to grow a lot more but we had blight on most of them.

Along with the tomatoes, we also grew all the garlic and peppers, including the jalapenos, and the fresh herbs.

Salsa veggies

Ingredients

8 cups tomatoes, chopped (about a dozen tomatoes, plus some cherry tomatoes)
4 cups mangoes & peaches, peeled & chopped (2 mangoes & 5 peaches)
2 cups onion, peeled & chopped (3 medium onions)
4 cups peppers, chopped (2 green bells, 2 Anchos, 2 Anaheims, 2 Peppercinis, Corni di Toro, 1 Purple Marconi)
1 cup jalapenos, diced
16 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
6 cups cider vinegar
2 3/4 cups sugar (the recipe we used as a guide didn't call for any)
2 tbsp salt
2 tsp cumin

4 cups tomatoes

Garlic

Directions

Wash and chop everything, then cook it all in a big pot for an hour. Ladle into sterilized bottles and cook in hot water bath for 15 minutes. Let cool, label and horde them until you run out.

Everything chopped, ready for the pot

You can decide how long to cook this for, from 20 minutes to an hour. The shorter the cooking time, the chunkier the salsa. We cooked it longer because we found it too runny, but we're fine with a less chunky salsa.

The process

After an hour of cooking

We got 10 pints from this batch, which was a double batch.

16 x 250 ml & 2 x 500 ml

Personally, I like a sweet salsa, and if I make it again I will be adding another 1/2 - 1 cup of sugar, but overall, it's a fantastic salsa. 

Tortilla chips & peach mango salsa