In addition to canning pickles this year, I decided to trying pickling zucchini and squash. I read about it on the Internet. I figure if you read it on the Internet, it has got to be OK, right?
Here are all my chopped vegetables. The squash and zucchini are so big I couldn't just slice them.
Lots o garlic for the dill pickles! I heart garlic.
My stove is too small for canning! The big pot in the back left is where I boil the brine. The medium pot in the front left is where I sterilize the lids. The humongous pot in the right front is where I sterilize the jars and then give the jars a hot water bath. It gets SO hot there, with all those big pots, that the tiles started falling off the backsplash! Yikes! It was starting to fall apart anyway, so we weren't too freaked out.
Clean and sterilized jars!
Bread and Butter pickled zucchini and squash
One of my many batches of pickles!
Another batch!
I canned about 130 jars of pickles this year! Well....pickles and....squash and zucchini.
I have tried the bread and butter squash and zucchini and actually I think they are yummy! I wonder if they are a little better for you?
I canned a lot more jars this year than the last two years I did pickles. I am hoping that it is worthwhile! I enjoy doing it. But I also am doing it to make money. We have sold quite a few jars so far. But there are many more to go! I sold out 2 years ago so quickly that I knew I had to make more. Canning is quite the laborious process, but at least I have the availability in the summer to do it. I am considering buying one of those padded chef mats for the kitchen because standing there in the kitchen for 9 hours at a time kills my feet!
We have sold only bread and butter pickles so far because the dill won't be ready until October. They take about 2 months to be their yummiest!
Let's hope people keep wanting to buy pickles this year! Otherwise that is all we will be eating all winter.
You gotta love the Internet. How else would this suburban girl ever learn how to can???
