Day one: I made pickles

Happy New Year!

Today is a New Day, a New Year and a New Decade

In 2010, I am going to make something new each and every day and blog about it here.

Today, when I woke up, I went upstairs to clean my kitchen from my NYE Homemade Ravioli mess last night. They were so delicious, but so messy!

The other day I picked up some small English cucumbers at the market. They were perfect for making dill pickles. They happened to have some great fresh dill at this same market, so I knew that pickles would definitely be in my future.

To make the pickles I used a recipe from a great old book, I found at the antique mall by my parents last weekend. It's called Mother Earth's Hassle-Free Vegetable Cookbook. This has been the first recipe I have used from the book, but based on how easy (and yes, hassle-free) the pickle recipe was, I will definitely be making more recipes from this book.

Here is the recipe:

30 Cucumbers
1/2 cup course salt
2 quarts water
2 tablespoons vinegar
4 cloves garlic
4 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon mixed pickling spice
10 sprigs dill

Now - I had no idea what "pickling spice" was, so after googling it, I found this page and it had some great recipes for making your own pickling spice. But since I didn't have most of what was called for in the pickling spices, I kind of did my own thing.

I made the brine by adding the salt to the water and then letting it come to a boil. I then let it cool and added the vinegar. I had cut the cucumbers in half lengthwise so that I could fit them bettering into my small canning jars.

I washed and dried all the jars and lids really well. I was able to get 5-6 halves into each jar. I also put one bay leaf and one garlic clove in each jar. I placed one sprig of dill into each jar as well. I filled the jars with the salt/vinegar solution and put on the lids. It says to keep them in a cool place and test one after 5 days.

I will let you all know how they turned in about a week!

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