Multiconstruct

Had a request for my dill pickles recipe. From a real foody like Jeff I am flattered. I’ve poured over old blog entries but only documented my variations on bread and butter pickles. Probably won’t do pickles this year with Sarah in St Louis and myself busy. I hope to primer the kitchen and dining room today instead. I also haven’t blogged for a while. Plan to get more on that a bit and still hope to bring the old blog public again. I found a bunch of links to spam sites on an old post so I need to go over the thing from bottom to top and put on a good edit and re-read and make sure there is nothing to damaging there. Next month. Things have at least settled down a bit where I get some down time. I’m getting lazy and responsive, frittering away any time I don’t have constant demands.

For dills though do as follows: Bring to a boil 8 1/2 cups water, 2 1/4 cup white vinegar, 1/2 cup canning salt. Put the equivalent of 7 quarts of jars mouth down in an inch of water and bring to a boil. Boil your your lids and rings in a separate pan. Boil all of them for at least 5 minutes. Stuff your jaw with cut up cukes, 2-4 garlic bulbs depending on size and a sprig of fresh dill (cosmos  leaves work as an adequate substitute) and cherry leaves, asian basil and grape leaves are acceptable variants. Garlic and dill is the old school way. Stuff as much cukes as you can to make your brine last. Pour the brine up to 1/2 an inch of the lid. Put on hot lids and rings and sit on the counter top down for a day. Let them sit a month before eating to get up to flavor perhaps 6 weeks. Crisp pickles come in two ways. Pickle them the day or the day after they are picked or you can lime them. If you buy a pack of pickling lime directions are on the container. It changes the flavor a bit but even elderly cukes come out nice and crisp. Fresh is best.