pickling cucumbers

It became clear that our 6 cucumber plants were producing at a rather wild rate where we could no longer eat 3 per day in salad. Yesterday we decided that our collected jars would not be for home-made tomato sauce but for pickled cucumbers! I have vivid memories of mum and dad always, and still to this day, having a jar of pickles in the fridge. Tasty. Sweet but sour and a little bit zingy. Love them!

We modified this recipe slightly and took a few photos along the way: Summertime Sweet Pickles. So just in case you find yourself with an abundance of cucumbers or glass jars here is how we made our pickles :)

1. Wash cucumbers and allow them to dry.

2. Sterilize all jars and lids in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. Let them cool before handling.

3. Slice cucumbers into desired widths. As we have never pickled anything in our lives before we trialled thin and thick rounds as well as length way longer slices.

 5. Jam as many slices of cucumber into each jar as possible, leaving a little space for a pickled onion and about 1cm of empty space from the top of the jar.

6. The recipe below is perfect for 1 kg of sliced cucumbers, so we just X4 each ingredient in one big pot, as we had 4 kg.

Boil the following together for 5 minutes.

• 1 cup Barossa Fermented Spiced Vinegar
• 1/8 cup sea salt (iodised or table salt will turn your pickling liquid cloudy)
• 3/4 cup white sugar 
• 1/4 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp dried mustard seeds
• 1 tsp dried dill
• 2 sweet onions
• sprig of fennel greenery

Pour the hot liquid in each jar leaving a 1 cm air gap.

7. Screw on all lids and rinse each jar with tap water.

8. Place the jars in a boiling water bath (aka, lasagne dish) for 25 minutes until most lids have popped down. You will hear the POPs and sizzling air sounds as the pressure builds up. Remove, cool and store in a cupboard and wait! :)

It's suggested to eat them after one week. Fingers crossed they taste as yummy as the picking liquid smelt. Friends and family we hope you like pickles! ;)

Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year xx

♥