Let's Make Pickles!

I started canning food just about the same time I started attending home births and I came to find there are common threads.

Both are serious business and not to be taken lightly. This seems more obvious when it comes to birth than to canning but there are boiling hot liquids involved in canning and also, if you don't do it right, just as in childbirth, someone can die.

Things have to be done correctly, things have to be sterilized. And if you ever need to know how to sterilize things at home in preparation for a home birth, I can tell you how.

But that's not today's subject. Today's subject is the fourteen day pickle and how you make it.

First disclaimer: The making of pickles, especially the canning part of the process, must be undertaken seriously and soberly. This is not the time to be drinking beer or smokin' a big fattie. (Can you believe I said that? I'm cracking myself up tonight.) But really, it's not. Not only do you not want to spill boiling liquid on yourself or anyone else, you do not want to give anyone Botulism. Honestly, I have never personally met anyone who got sick from eating home-canned food but why risk it? As with birthing babies, safety and health first.
Always. No exceptions.



Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 gallons cucumbers sliced into chunks
2 cups salt, non-iodized (like pickling salt)
2 Tablespoons Alum (powdered)
5 pints Apple Cider Vinegar, boiling hot
9 cups sugar (not kidding, yeah, nine)
1/2 oz. celery seed
2 cinnamon sticks
5 Tablespoons pickling spice

Directions:

In a clean stone (glass or ceramic) jar (And I use a crock that my grandmother left me or else one I bought in an antique store and when I say clean, I mean CLEAN. Use bleach if necessary to get that sucker clean) put 2 gallons of cucumbers, washed and sliced into chunks. They must be sliced or else they will shrivel and please- who wants shriveled pickles? Shrinkage is going to occur but let's try and keep it to a minimum.
Dissolve the salt in one gallon of boiling water. Pour this over the cucumbers in their crock. Cover the pickles and weight the cover down. I use a plate over the cukes with a pyrex bowl on top with a big can of tomatoes in it. Cover that, after it has cooled a bit, with saran wrap or something to keep the flies out.
Let stand for one week. Mark it on the calendar because you're going to forget.

On the eighth day, drain the pickles. (Please note- whenever I say "drain" I mean, take your very clean hands and pick up the pickles, letting the juice run back into the crock between your fingers. That crock is heavy and this seems the easiest way to me. I put the drained pickles into a huge bowl while I am finishing the rest of the process.) If you see some mold, do not worry and do not throw the whole thing out. I believe this is part of the process. Come on- grow up. A little mold never hurt anyone. Think sauerkraut and blue cheese.
Pour one gallon of boiling water over the drained pickles which you have put back into the crock. Let stand for twenty-four hours.

On the ninth day (and it only took God six days to create the universe, but he's God and We're not), drain the pickles again. Dissolve the alum (and I do not know what alum is and I do not want to because it can't be good. This is what perks up the pickles and makes them crispy- think pickle Viagra) in one gallon of boiling water and pour that over the pickles. Let stand for another twenty-four hours.

On the tenth day, prepare the magic pickling elixir. Combine the boiling vinegar with six cups of the sugar. Only six! You have to add the sugar gradually or something terrible will happen. I don't know what. But you don't want to fuck it up at this point, right? When dissolved, add the celery seed and cinnamon sticks and pickling spice. Some people bag all that stuff up so it doesn't go into the final product but I like to see all my spices floating around. If you don't, tie them up in cheesecloth.



Drain the pickles and pour the boiling elixir over them.

On the twelfth and thirteenth days, drain the pickles, saving the liquid. Heat the liquid up again, dissolving one cup of sugar in it both days. Pour back over the pickles.

On the fourteenth day, drain the pickles, saving the liquid. Pack the pickles into sterilized jars. Heat the liquid and dissolve one more cup of sugar (yes, these are not really pickles, they are cucumber candy- let's face it) in it. Pour the sweetened liquid over the pickles and seal jars.

Now. I actually process my pickles, due to my paranoia about Botulism. And let's talk about sterilization here.
To can food, you really need a canning kettle. Here is mine with some freshly sterilized jars in the rack which comes with the kettle:


And the canning kettle is only good for high-acid foods like tomatoes and pickles. If you are going to can something like green beans, you need a pressure canner.

You are also going to need a jar-lifter too. It looks like this:



And in action, it looks like this:


Note: Although the jar lifter looks like something you might use at a birth, IT IS NOT! It is only used for jar lifting.

So to sterilize your jars, you need to wash them in clean soapy water and rinse them well. Then put them in the canning kettle in their neat little wire slots and fill the kettle with water to a level about two inches over the jars. If you put the jars in with water already in them, you will eliminate that floating-jars problem.
Put the canning kettle on the biggest burner you have, put the cover on it, and turn that sucker up to high. When the water comes to a boil, time it for ten minutes and then turn the burner off, carefully lift up the wire rack, drain the jars (using the jar lifter!) and put the jars on a piece of newspaper. While you are doing this, wash the jar lids and rings and put them in a pan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, turn the burner off and leave them in the pan until ready to use.



Pack your pickles (that sounds rather racy, doesn't it?) into the clean, hot jars. Pour your hot liquid (in this case, the elixir) to cover the pickles. Wipe off the tops of the jars with a clean cloth. Put the sterilized lids on the jars and screw your bands on.
Put the jars back into the canning kettle, bring back to a boil, and let boil for ten more minutes.

There. You are done. You will bring those jars out of the kettle and back onto the newspaper and you will hear the lids pop, which is the sound of success. If a lid does not pop- no worries. Put that jar into the refrigerator and that will be the first jar you eat.


This recipe made me eleven pints of beautiful pickles. There they are. I can't tell you how happy I am to have them.

One more bit of advice: for all things canned, consult your Ball Blue Book.


This was your great grandmother's canning bible and it will not fail you.

And one more disclaimer: Do not eat one of these pickles if you are diabetic. Seriously. Nine cups of sugar in one gallon of vinegar? Need I say more?

And I know this sounds like a lot of work but if you get your canning kettle and your jar lifter and your jars, you will be all set for the rest of your life.
Also, the canning kettle can double as a little play pool if filled with water for your toddler.

Enjoy. I know I will.