Pickles - The Canning of Cucumbers

Today is the super exciting pickle canning! Tee hee. It's not really that exciting, but it feels good that we are preserving the cucumbers before they spoil. Our goal is to have no waste from our garden.

The new Fagor Pressure Cooker/Canner has been doing a fantastic job. I'm very excited to see how these pickles taste versus the overwhelming vinegar taste that we had with water canning. The cooker/canner that we have does not allow for a dial of pressure, but relies on two different set pressures. This will work for us. As we become more familiar with the process, and if we find that we will continue to pressure can, then we will purchase a canner with a pressure dial. Until then we are quite happy with the one we have.

Today we making dill pickles and sweet pickles. I have posted the Dill Pickle Recipe that we used for the dill pickles. Let me know if you have another recipe to share. I am excited to try this one but have not yet, so...use with that in mind.  We did have 1 casualty, one of our Mason Jars broke while cooking. I guess that is fairly common, but it is a first for us. I don't like waste so it was hard to see, but cleaned it up and now all is well.


The last batch is cooking as I write this. There is nothing better than sitting with the windows open, and the smell of the coming autumn in the air. Then when the world and my thoughts are silent...all of a sudden there is a "pop". The pop is the sound of the jars finishing the sealing process.  It is a little smile at the end of a busy day.

And...pop...there goes another. Oh life is good  :)