I don’t know about you but I love pickles. Eating a nice crunchy pickle spear with a delicious deli sandwich is one of my favorite memories I have of my grandfather.  He and I were the only ones in our family that shared a love of pickles.  It was a joy we shared in a glance and smile as we unwrapped our sandwiches.  He always had a jar of whole dill pickles in his bar refrigerator and whenever I would go to grab one for an afternoon snack I would just look over at him and he would nod and smile as I grabbed a second one for him.

Let me share with you my experience making home made pickles for the first time!  My super creative and crafty mother came in to town to visit. Typically I feel safe to try new adventurous recipes or craft ideas when she’s in town because if I screw it up she is pretty resourceful and can make it turn out great despite my mistakes.  So we dug through my cookbooks and found a simple recipe in Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. Here is what it called for:

3lbs 4inch pickling cucumbers (about 36)

3 ¾ cups water

3 ¾ cups cider vinegar (white/rice vinegar can be substituted)

¼ cup pickling salt

12-18 heads fresh dill or 6 tablespoons dill seeds

1 tablespoon mustard seed

Looks simple right?? To be honest, the most complicated part of this recipe was preparing and sealing the mason jars… I’ve googled around and found a few “quick dill pickle” recipes where you don’t have to do this process, but have not tried them yet.

Step 1. First and foremost we had to sterilize the mason jars. To do this we used my turkey roasting pan placed over two burners on my stove. We filled it with water and brought it to a boil with the glass jars inside. I flipped the jars after 5 minutes and then let them sit for another 5 minutes so they spent a total of 10 minutes in the hot water. The jars were then removed and placed on the counter ready to be filled.

Step 2.  Thoroughly rinse the cucumbers, remove any unwanted stems. Slice them into spears, keep them whole or slice into ovals depending on preference.  We did one of each, just to be fancy.

Step 3. Then in a large stainless-steel, enameled, or nonstick saucepan combine water, vinegar and salt.  Bring to boiling. (this is going to be what’s called brine and will be used as the pickling solution)

Step 4.  Pack cucumbers loosely into hot sterilized pint canning jars leaving ½ inch head space.  Add 2-3 heads of dill and mustard seeds to each jar.  Pour hot vinegar mixture over cucumbers, leaving a ½ inch head space.  Wipe jar rims and adjust lids.

Step 5.  Process in a boiling-water canner for 10 minutes. (we did not have a water canner so we just stuck them in a roasting pan with  and inch or two of water on the stove and processed them that way).

The recipe required we let the jars stand for one week, and let me tell you …that was the hardest week of our lives!! My husband and I had to put them in an unused cabinet next to the stove so we’d stop looking at them, drooling over them.  Finally when we could open them it was such an exciting moment!! They had a wonderful crunch to them and there was just something so enjoyable about knowing they were  home made!!

What would I do different?? I would use a white or rice vinegar instead of the apple cider vinegar in hopes that there would be less of a vinegar aftertaste.  It seemed the jars that sat the longest had the stronger salty/vinegar after taste to them…go figure. My husband loved the saltier ones so I guess it just depends on your preference.  I would also try throwing in some cloves of garlic into the jars with the sprigs of fresh dill or use a pack of pickling spices in the brine instead; hoping to add a little bit more flavor to the pickles.

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