Preserving the harvest: cucumbers

See those five jars in front? Yup, dill pickles.

This is so ridiculously easy, I can’t even believe it. I got the recipe on-line:

4 lbs cucumbers
3 cups white vinegar
3 cups water
1/3 cup pickling salt

for each pint jar:
2 T dill seed
3 peppercorns
1 or 2 dried cayenne peppers (optional)

Wash, cut cucumbers.
Combine vinegar, water, salt. Heat to the boiling point.
Pack cukes into hot, clean jars.
Add spices.
Seal, process 10 minutes.
Makes 6-8 pints.

It took me about an hour. I didn’t have any dried cayenne peppers, so I included one hot red pepper fresh from the garden. And I didn’t have quite enough dill seed to go around (this took a whole tin from the grocery store). And I dropped one of the jars pulling it out of the water bath. It didn’t break, but the lid came off, and there was dill vinegar everywhere. So that was kind of a pain. But in the end, I had five jars of totally delicious pickles. I will probably make more, if we have more cucumbers.