Garden Recipes: Canning Memories

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Hello, sweet Readers!

So, I know we ALL have our favorite recipes for eating from the garden. One of the favorites here is Pickles: dill, sweet, refrigerator pickles, and my last post was fresh Danish Dill pickles.

Refrigerator Fresh Danish Dill Pickles: HERE!

A photo from last year,  Green Gardening with Swallowtail caterpillars feasting on Dill:  POST HERE.

We planted extra dill this year, of which we will let some seed, BECAUSE, seems the butterflies, especially Monarchs, like to lay their eggs on it, and the caterpillars feast on the juicy stems. This happens late in the season, so it is no loss of Dill, I actually have enough to keep Heinz pickles in stock, this year.

I learned how to can and freeze fresh food, when Mom and I used to do food canning during the summer up at their cottage in Wisconsin. The cottage was an old 1853 Farmhouse, you know the kind that start out as two rooms and then more rooms were added on---in every direction. 

Well, the  old cottage originally had a wood stove in the kitchen. Gosh, MOM just loved the old-fashioned way of cooking everything, even heating water for dishes before we added a water heater. There was a hand crank water pump in the kitchen connected to a cistern, water we used for washing floors and clothes. 

Anyway, the Wautoma area was the pickle and tomato capital of Wisconsin, and we would can tomatoes, and lots of other things, too.

This years tomatoes are gorgeous! Canning tomatoes post: here.Preparing Tomatoes for Canning or Freezing and Canning Tomatoes in January. Yes, you can freeze tomatoes whole in the skins and then can them. Perfect idea when you only have a few at a time, Freeze and save for a big batch. 

Today I did that big bowl tomatoes and 4 bags from the freezer. This made 19 pints this morning! Here, whole tomatoes are keeping warm and waiting to go into the water bath. 

Our one Son's favorite Corn relish: Canning Corn Relish

My Mom and I concocted this recipe from our supermarket brand canned zucchini ingredients list in the 1970's: Zucchini in Stewed Tomatoes  It's absolutely delicious!

We also did, 

green beans, three bean salad, wild plum jam, and lots of pickles: watermelon pickles, pickled beets, pickled choke cherries, slippery Jims, Dill, Sweet, and relishes. These were always shared with extended family members.We even tried Mom's favorite chutney--but nobody liked that. 

Fall was for canning jars of apple butter, apple sauce, pumpkin butter, and lots of baking for the freezer. We kept that old stove a-cranking, when it finally died (the grates disintegrated and we had a 'modern' stove, I don't think it was as much fun!

What sort of foods do you put up

 from your own garden? 

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 Sandi Magle

FRESH Danish Dill or Sweet Pickles

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Our Green Garden was so late, but, we were excited when the cucumbers finally started the end of July. Hubby was enthusiastic and planted four different kinds of seeds. It's so nice to use your own cucumbers, free of pesticides and harmful chemicals. 

And cucumbers that are fresh and not waxed, like the store ones--last far longer in this recipe.

Here's a couple of different ones, the fat one is kinda big, but very fresh, so perfect for fresh pickles. This is my Danish grandmother's recipe for Agurksalat, or Cucumber salad.   

Very few ingredients, fresh cucumbers sliced very thin, salt, white wine vinegar, touch of sugar, water, and fresh dill--the feathery part of the dill plant.

In a glass bowl---sprinkle maybe a quarter cup of salt over a bowl of sliced cucumbers...Mix well. (I peel thick skinned cucumbers, but leave the thin skinned ones with skin.)

(IF you wish to add onions, add ratio of 4 parts cucumbers to 1 part white onions, sliced very thin or green onions sliced very thin.)

Push all the cucumbers to the center, place a saucer on top that fits in the bowl, and a heavy weight. This is a huge jar of peanut butter. Let this sit, room temperature for a few hours, or until the cucumbers have weeped enough water to cover themselves. 

Here you can see the water. This water has to be squeezed out, you can put all of the pickles in a towel, rinse well with cold water, (you want to remove all that salt). Ball up the towel,  and then turn and squeeze the juice out until nothing more comes out. 

You can put them back in the original bowl, or maybe a smaller covered glass container. 

Add some sprigs of fresh dill (I used 4), just lay them in the dish or just add some onion slices or both.

Make a brine of two parts water, one part white wine vinegar, start with sugar-1/4 to 1/2 the amount of vinegar. (We like them not too sweet, so when you taste the brine, it's first a bit sweet, but then the vinegar kicks in and still goes up your nose) Add more vinegar or sugar to taste. Pour this over the cucumbers, chill, covered.

Example of brine for say 3-4 small to medium cucumbers (not too big)

Brine for fresh cucumbers

1 cup of water, 

1/2 cup of white wine vinegar, 

I start with 1/4 cup of sugar and then add. If you need more, add to taste. (Sprinkle of white pepper optional)

Make more brine if you have lots of cucumbers. They will keep in the refrigerator for up to a month, but they never last that long, LOL.

This first batch didn't last very long---and I had my lunch of tomato basil hummus on multi grain bread and a healthy dose of my Danish Dill Pickles, NUM.

Grandmother would say,  "There you go to eat!" or

Vaer sa god at spise!

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Sandi