In a Pickle: Making Bread and Butter Pickles and Dilly Beans

It’s canning time again. Bulging bags of green beans and pickling cucumbers awaited me in the fridge, all picked and ready for preserving. Some were from my garden, some were from my neighbor’s garden, and some were from the farm where we get our CSA. It was a collaborative harvest. My friend came over to keep me company, and we spent the day making pickles. There is something really satisfying and wholesome about opening a jar of crunchy pickles in the winter. They’re just so good. I aspire to make many, many pickles this fall. Our family has started really liking bread and butter pickles over the past year, so I decided to try my hand at making those first. We were also down to our last jar of dilly beans from last year, which has been a yearly favorite since my kids were babies, so they were next up on the pickling to-do list. All that aside, having this great big farm pantry gives me the uncontrollable impulse to fill it up with food in the fall. The sense of accomplishment that comes with it is profound.

Here are the pickling recipes I used from the Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving. If you don’t have this book, you should. The last time I bought one, it was only five bucks, and it’s a wealth of information for pretty much anything you’re going to can. 

4 lbs. pickling cucumbers cut into 1/4″ slices

2 lbs. onions thinly sliced (8 small)

1/8 cup canning salt

2 cups sugar

2 tbsp. mustard seed

2 tsp. turmeric

2 tsp. celery seed

1 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. peppercorns

3 cups apple cider vinegar

Combine cucumbers and onions in a big bowl, layering with salt and cover with ice cubes. Let stand for 1 1/2 hours. Drain and rinse twice. Combine remaining ingredients in sauce pot and boil. Add cucumbers and onions and return to boil. Pack into hot jars, leaving 1/4″ head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust two piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Makes 7 pints.

2 lbs. green beans

1/4 cup canning salt

2 1/2 cups vinegar

2 1/2 cups water

1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes per pint jar

4-8 cloves peeled garlic per pint jar

one head dill per pint jar

Trim ends off of green beans.  Combine salt, vinegar and water in a sauce pot and boil. Pack beans lengthwise into hot jars. Put 1/2 tsp pepper flakes, garlic cloves, and one dill head in each jar. Ladle hot liquid into each jar, leaving 1/4″ head space.  Remove air bubbles. Adjust two piece caps. Process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. Makes 4 pints.