In a Pickle....

Last weekend my Ma and I went to the Hartville Market. It was such a wonderful experience and some of the deals we were given were just too good to pass up. I taught my mom one of the tips that I learned from shopping at farmers markets, do not buy the first thing that you find. That tip held true because right when we were about to leave we came to a booth with a woman who everyone referred to as "mother." Mother had huge baskets of cucumbers for 3 dollars. When I saw these cucumbers I knew they would be perfect for homemade Amish Garlic Dill Pickles . Mother gave us a bigger deal, she gave us two baskets of cucumbers which weighed about 30 lbs for 5 dollars. When we got them home Ma and I made pickles, have a look:

We have a very big and very deep sink. Here are all of the cucumbers "mother" sold to us.


As I always say, I love the opportunity to teach. My mom had never canned before so I shared with her everything I know about it. I told her the number one rule is to be extremely clean. Here are all of our sterilized jars. Most of these use to be Brian's Mother's jars.


We made a huge pot of flavorful pickling brine.


We made the pickles a bit thicker than in prior years. We used my Pampered chef crinkle cutter until the arthritis set in.


I told my mom that we needed to put enough cucumbers in the jars so there would be enough pickles in the jars after they were done pickling.


Once the jars were filled with brine and cucumbers we used a chopstick my sister Marcie gave me as a gift to poke around in the jars to help all of the air bubbles escape.


Again I stressed to my mom the importance of being clean and sterile. After filling all of the jars we wiped the rims clean.


Here are some of the jars ready to be processed in a water bath.


After about 8-10 minutes the jars needed to be carefully lifted out of the water.


YUMMM PICKLES!


These pickles need to sit for two weeks and after that they will be ready to be devoured and share!