My first pickle.

I mentioned before that I love pickles. Because of this I bought pickling cucumber seeds this year so I could make my own pickles. I had one pickling cucumber ripen last week and I put it in a salad. Not such a good idea. It was really unpleasantly bitter on its own. I learned my lesson on that one. This week I had five or six pickling cucumbers ripen, so I made a small batch of pickles.

I'm new to pickling and am learning that you can pickle just about anything and there are lots of different ways to make pickles, from easy refrigerator pickles, to one-day and two-day pickles, to pickles that have to sit in the corner of your kitchen for three weeks before you do anything with them. Since I only had a small batch of cucumbers right now I went with the easy, breezy refrigerator dill pickles. These aren't canned and preserved, so they have to be eaten within a few months. When all three of my cucumber plants start producing (right now only one is producing fruit) then I will make a bigger batch of preserved pickles.

First, I sliced my cukes and set them aside in a bowl.

I made the pickling brine with some vinegar, pickling salt, sugar and pickling spice and boiled it about ten minutes. Then poured the brine over the pickle slices and let it sit and cool for about a half hour.

Inside the jars I put some peppercorns, mustard seed, garlic cloves and dill. Then added the slices and covered with brine. Pickles, done!

Well, mostly done. They are fermenting in the fridge and will be tasty and edible in about two weeks.