Yes, Sciarrino and I survived pickle maddness 2009, just barely!

Oh my goodness we did so much canning. Here's what happened. Two Wednesday's ago Sciarrino and I were walking the street fair when we saw canning cucumbers, so we decided to get some and try it out. We were going to get three reasonably sized cartons, but the guys said, "I'll give you this bag for the same price." How could we say no? Turns out it was about eight pounds, and we canned that pretty easy, and learned a few things (those are the classic dill, forth from the left, the ones floating – oops!). So when I went back last Wednesday (wearing Tuesday and pulling an old lady shopping cart I brought from home) I told the same guy that I wanted two more of the bags, "like I got last week." Well when he pulled one bag out from under his whole table came crashing down! So I was just like, "put the bags in the cart, it's okay." And not really paying attention. I had this crazy cart laden down with cucumbers, dill and some green beans and I pulled it back to the car while Tuesday bobbed along in the Baby Hawk. When I loaded it into the car it felt pretty heavy, but I wasn't really paying attention, because I had to drop that off and get more stuff (peppers, cauliflower, beans, garlic) and meet my mom. So imagine my shock when I realized I had just saddled us with FORTY POUNDS of cucumbers. So we tried a lot of recipes and had a lot of things going at once. I think they turned out pretty well though:

Especially considering we stayed up until one am the night before we were to be at a wedding, because we are crazy people. And then Sciarrino got up, made more and finished sewing a skirt to wear to said wedding. Because not only are we crazy, we are multitaskers. Oh wait, that's not all:

And I already traded a jar to my neighbor for chutney, score! We figured since we had to wait at least four weeks for the other pickles we should do some we could dig into sooner and tried these two recipes: mixed veggie pickles and dill slices. We can eat them in two weeks. I will be making a salad with the mixed veggies this Wednesday, nothing bad will happen right? Sciarrino figured the worst that could happen would be not as flavorful veggies, right? Oh and AND we still have four pounds to can (because we can't find a product called "surejel" I guess it's actually "ClearJel" we are looking for locally). Plus I got beans to pickle, and more beets… oh and of the beans I lost two baskets full. I hope I left them on the side of the road and they are not like, rotting in my car. Our fridge now looks like this:

That big jar up top is from my mom who made me my favorite birthday dinner and stuck it in my fridge for me while I was away (we stayed up in Portland for the wedding). Isn't that so sweet? So yes, we made it to the wedding, had a blast, and didn't even smell that much like pickles, at least I don't think we did…

It’s the middle of the night and I’m nursing Tuesday. All I can smell is hot vinegar and pickling spices. The kitchen is a wreck and the dinning room table is full of jars. We might have gotten in over our heads a tiny little bit.

Bj asked as I came home from the farmer's market with another haul of cucumbery goodness:

Well last week at the Wednesday market we (Sciarrino and I) talked about how we had wanted to do pickles last year, but didn't, so we just went ahead and bought a huge bag of pickling cucumbers. Thereby forcing ourselves to make pickles. A couple hundred dollars worth of spices and paraphernalia later (I'm a sucker for the pretty spice jars, such a sucker)…

Mmmm pickling spice.

Ready for hot pickling liquid:

They are just so pretty like that! Of course I don't know (and won't know for weeks) if these turned out well. And I sealed them all up before realizing I didn't get mustard seeds in there, oops! I think we might have done a couple of things wrong, like not making enough pickling liquid at once, waiting too long between the step, etc. We'll see. That is not stopping us (Sciarrino and I) from getting two huge bags and giving it another go. I also got some darling Italian canning jars, so guess what? If you know me, you're getting something canned for Christmas (I'll let you know if it is going to be more decorative than edible). 

Bj decided we needed a freezer, so we finally got a stand alone, and I've been busy stocking that as well:

Each cube is two ounces. I'm using these for now, but they seem to be sold out most places, so I got some of these for the next batch. I hope they pop out as easy as the Baby Cubes. So far I've made plum (from our tree), pear (from our neighbor's), yam and apricot. I also froze some of the plum juice into ice cube sized pieces. Plus I have some of my milk back there, not that Tuesday's ever really warmed up to the idea of a bottle, right mom? I got one of these GlassLock containers to put in the fridge with a cube or two in it to defrost. Maybe I'll get another one and do a cube for breakfast and one for dinner. I'm not really sure when she is going to want to eat more. We are trying to have things on our plate she can eat, but I'm not always with it (see below), so I figured it would be good to have some back up food. My mom pointed out I should can a little in case the power ever goes out. 

I am having so much fun in the kitchen! And I'm rarely in there. I have been living off of Amy's Cheese Enchilada meals for a while (only 450 calories and mostly organic). But now that I'm making all this stuff for Tutu I'm wanting to make more for myself. My mom and I love the Smitten Kitchen blog, have you seen it? Yummy. I have been using this book for baby stuff, this one for canning (and I just got this one today). I'd love tried and true recipes though, if you have any I'd love it! I'll try pickling just about any thing: 

Beets! I don't even eat beets! My mom pointed out that I maybe should have made some smaller jars of these (I used the biggest I had). Hmm. So tips like that would be welcome too. I want to can some fruit too. I can do anything that just takes a water bath, but I have no pressure cooker. Ideas? Tips? Books? Stories?