We are having a great cucumber year. So we decided to make our first batch of pickles this week.
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We were down to our last jar of bread & butter pickles from last year, so we decided to start with those. You can tell it’s early in the canning season, because I entertained the idea of cutting the cucumbers with the crinkle cutter.
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The struggle with these pickles is that you have to slice and salt them, and leave them for an hour to drain before finishing the recipe. And I always forget that – so when I carve out the time to do them, suddenly I have an hour in the middle of it where I need to do something else while I wait, like laundry. I never learn.
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The recipe we use is an old American recipe, that came from my Danish mother-in-law. We used my family’s recipe for a number of years, but then had a jar of hers and decided that was the better recipe. We’ve used it a couple of years now and everyone loves it.
The recipe:
- 8 cups cucumbers, sliced thin
- 3 cups onions, sliced thin or chopped*
- 4 tbsp salt
Sprinkle salt over vegetables and let stand 1 hour
Drain and add
- 2 cups vinegar
- 2 tsp turmeric powder
- 2 tsp celery seed
- 3” stick of cinnamon
- 3 cups white sugar
- 4 green peppers, chopped fine*
Bring syrup to a boiling point, just simmering, for 15-20 minutes. Pour over cucumbers in hot sterilized jar, and process for 10-15 minutes.
*Use half as many as called for, or omit entirely if you don’t like the taste
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8 cups of cucumbers netted us 4 pint jars of pickles. Which is a manageable amount to can; as the season runs on we will end up doing double and triple batches, and most of Sunday afternoon into evening will be spent on canning. I am always grateful for the work come the middle of winter, but in the heat of summer it can be draining.