I’ve cucumbers coming out of my ears…guess that is what happens when I put four plants into the ground!
This time, besides more Speedy Dill Pickles
I found a couple of recipes that I wanted to try and sort of merged them into one, with a few additions of my own. And I came up with:
CHUNKY MONKEY MUSTARD PICKLED VEGGIES
You can find the originals I worked with at: Self-reliance: Recession-proof Your Pantry, pg 87 – Aunt Merna’s Chunky Mustard Pickles and Canning & Preserving for Dummies, pg 104 – Pickled Veggies.
All veggies, sans the cauliflower, came from my garden…I’ll try to give you the precise amounts of each one, but sometimes I just had a “handful”, so bare with me.
CHUNKY MUSTARD PICKLED VEGGIES
2 quarts pickle cucumbers, cut into large chunks 1″-2″ skin left on
1 head cauliflower, cut into small flowerets
3 large carrots, cut into 1-1/2″ pieces then halved
3 Sweet Italian peppers, stemmed and cut into 2″ pieces seeds included
4 Jalapenos, stemmed and seeded cut into 1/2″ pieces
2 Bell peppers (I used red & yellow), stemmed, seeded and cut into large pieces
4 2″-3″ onions – peeled and cut into rings
6 Tomatillos – husked and quartered (that was all that I had ripe after making salsa)
Green beans – handful, I found a plant underneath the tomatillos!
6 yellow pickle peppers
Get your water bath canner ready and jars hot (I had ready 6 quart jars and a couple of pint jars as I wasn’t sure how much my recipe would make. )
Cut all the veggies and put in a large stainless steel pot, glass bowl, or crock. Sprinkle 1 cup kosher salt over veggies and then cover with 4 quarts of water or enough to cover veggies. Let soak for 6 hours or more. Drain and rinse with cold water.
Bring to boil 4 cups of vinegar, 2 cups of water and 6 cups of sugar in large stainless steel pot.
Mix 1 cup of cleargel
(or flour) with 2 cups of water, 1 TBS celery seed, 4 TBS of mustard powder, 2 TBS Tumeric and 1 TBS mustard seed. Blend well and then add to vinegar mixture. Let thicken then add veggies and bring to a rolling boil.
Ladle into your hot prepared jars and leave 1/4″ head space…wipe rims clean and put on lids and rings.
Process for 20 minutes after boiling starts. Higher elevations add 10 minutes. I’m in Northern Nevada so I processed for 30 minutes total. Hook canning rack over the pots rim and let sit for 5 minutes before pulling jars out for cooling.