Pickles Part 2

So the first round of pickles was so successful that Mr. Ranch decided we should pickle "other things".  He is a big fan of "hot mix", which is about $6 a jar at the local King Soopers...so I decided, why not?  We used the spicy recipe from my 9/13 post and a spicy beet pickle from my handy dandy Ball Canning Book.  This time I remembered to buy coriander...which at $5.99 a jar made me glad that I planted more cilantro for next summer!

 My trusty Ball Blue Book (say that 5 times fast...)

 Ok, didn't can this, in fact it is still sitting on my counter.  We think it is mutant cucumber.  It is very interesting.

 Some of the trimmings...

 Jalapenos...I used gloves when I cut them up, but not when I put them in jars and have spent the last 24 hours trying not to touch my face or eyes.  Which made taking out and putting in my contacts interesting. Luckily, today I found a home remedy ("wash" your hands in olive oil for 1-2 minutes, then wash with dish soap and cold water.)  It's about time for bed, so we'll see if it worked when I take out my contacts in a few...

 More cucumbers...they just keep coming...

 Some of the other produce that is going to be pickled or otherwise processed.  From left-ish to right...that weird cucumber, cauliflower, celery, green and yellow peppers, cucumbers, beets, onions from the garden, asparagus, carrots from the garden, and tomatoes to be made into salsa. (Eat some, freeze some).

 A close up...

 Most of what I made was "refrigerator pickled"--it has to be stored in the fridge because I don't use a pressure cooker.  Most of the jars "seal", so I feel pretty good about it not going bad...

 There are a few jars here (on the left)  that were new jars and seemed to seal themselves, so we are going to try not refrigerating them...we think that means we can give them to people who can't immediately refrigerate them.  We'll see...

And finally, we had a few beets from the CSA.  Last week we froze some, but given that we don't often eat beets..that didn't seem like a reasonable solution for this round.  Luckily I found this recipe...

Spicy Pickled Beets

4 lbs beets, cooked

3 cups thinly sliced onions

2 ½ cups cider vinegar

1 ½ cups water

1 tsp salt

2 cups sugar

1 TBSP mustard seed

 1 tsp whole allspice

1 tsp whole cloves

3 sticks cinnamon, broken

Only had 3 beets, forgot the water, didn’t have whole allspice or cloves, so used ground allspice and ground cloves...sigh.

Wash and drain beets, remove peel, cool and cut.

Combine remaining ingredients in a sauce pan, bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 5 min.  Add beets, cook until hot. Remove cinnamon sticks.  Pack beets (and onions) into jars, pour hot pickling liquid over beets.  Put on lids...

Then I put them in the refrigerator.  I tasted the one piece leftover and they were yummy...

 As you can tell from the color though, these might have been sugar beets.  Or even turnips.  But I'm pretty sure they were beets...and they were yummy when they went in the jars, so it's all good!