Pickle - Palooza

Pickle - Palooza

Today marks the fifth day that I have been in some way shape or form pickling.  Yet, believe it or not, I still have cucumbers left over.  However, the house reeks, I'm tired, and I'm beginning to wonder how many pickles one family can really eat. So I'm pretty sure tonight's batch of relish is the end of Pickle-Palooza 2012.

My first batch of cucumbers to process came in last Wednesday's CSA bag - 16 whole pounds of two to three inch cucumbers.  (Sadly, though I tried, I couldn't get that kind of yield from my garden.) I was so happy to have enough to do a double batch of Sweet Gherkins.  They are absolutely delicious.   I got turned on to them through reading Chickens In the Road.  They turn out so crunchy and sweet with just the right amount of tang. 

Emma, however, does not like them and prefers dill pickles.  So I went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and picked up another ten pounds of pickles.  I took the easy road on the dills though.  When shopping for jars, I saw a package mix of Mrs. Wages and decided to give it a try.  Glad I did.  Emma taste tested today and gave it her seal of approval which means a lot because this kid is getting quite picky any more.

Now apparently twenty - six pounds is  a lot of cucumbers because even after 14 pints of gherkins and 7 quarts of dills, I still had cucumbers left over.  Which was fine because I've been wanting to try making  relish.  Last year we just diced up the gherkins any time we wanted some which worked well.  This gave me an idea.  I chopped up a few more pounds of cucumbers, a couple of large onions, 3 small green peppers (which did come from my garden, yay. ), and marinated it all with the left over brine from the gherkins. So tonight I processed four pints of relish.  ~Sigh~  I think I'm done with pickling for this year.

But not with canning...  My Clear jel came in today, and I got a real good price on a 1/4 bushel of peaches.  So tomorrow it's "hello peach pie filling".     :)

What are you canning today?