A Country Cupboard

Our garden has been fairly abundant in its first season.  We have certainly had masses of cucumbers.  I have canned dill slices, dill spears, bread and butter pickles, sweet relish and many jars of Christmas Red Pickles... which do not taste like pickles in the least.   

Dill slices, red pickles, bread 'n butter and relish

One taste of a red pickle and you will swear you have just bitten into a delicious cinnamon flavored apple! Tom remembers his mom making red pickles; it's one of his favorites.  The recipe is labor intensive and 3 days long, but I assure you they are well worth the effort.

The tomatoes promise to be a good harvest as there are many lovely, perfect green spheres on the plants.  I plucked my first two yesterday.  There will {hopefully} be plenty to put up for winter, so we can make fresh spaghetti sauce and salsa during those chilly days spent inside.

Tomorrow will be a rare Saturday for the hubby and I - we are both off work!  Of course, we requested the day off.  Our initial plan was to head south, to the Ponca City (Oklahoma) rodeo.  Alas our temps are still in the 100s so sitting outside under the blistering sun doesn't sound like a fun time.  We'll forego the rodeo and instead drive up to Wichita early morning for the Olde Towne Farmers Market; I'm hoping to pick up a bunch of pickling cucumbers and make some whole dills.  (We neglected to plant pickling cukes this year. That will be rectified in next year's garden.)  I'm sure the Farmers Market promises to entice with plenty of other fresh produce and fruit.  After that, we'll enjoy a free lunch with a gift card I have for the Texas Roadhouse.

Then we'll head home so hubby can finish the front porch railing that he made...

and his garage renovation, which is really quite exciting when you consider what our garage HAS been... a giant storage shed with lots of boxes and miscellaneous furniture, a scary place that also housed rats and mice and large bugs.  He has torn down the low plywood ceiling and reinforced the roof supports, taken out drywall and installed OSB board for the walls, replaced some rotted boards, removed cupboards and a sink, and today he bought the first batch of outside knotty barnwood siding. I've been taking photos all along, so I'll post some before and afters in a few weeks.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and staying cool in these extreme temps!  

Beautiful autumn is just around the corner, hooray!

naked lady lily in front yard

P.S. The winner of the kitteh name contest (even though we used our own chosen name of CiCi) is Smart Mouth Broad... I'll get your jar of strawberry jam mailed once the temps cool down! 

  

A Good Year for Cucumbers and Other Rural Trivia

an explosion of cucumbers 

Of course, we'll be canning pickles over the next few weeks.  Since I don't have my canning jars yet, I decided to make some refrigerator dill pickles today, utilizing some saved spaghetti sauce jars.  I'll let you know how they taste after they "cure" for the required 10 days, but in the meantime, here's the standard recipe from Allrecipes.com with my variations noted.

Spicy Refrigerator Dill Pickles

(12) 3-4" long pickling cucumbers

2 cups water

1-3/4 cups white vinegar

1-1/2 cups chopped fresh dill weed

1/2 cup white sugar

8 cloves garlic, chopped

1-1/2 tbls. coarse salt

1 tbls pickling spice

1-1/2 tsp dill seed

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

4 sprigs fresh dill weed

My variations:

I used (6) 6" long tendergreen burpless variety cucumbers.  Since my dill plants were decimated by the swallowtail butterfly caterpillars (see pics here), I no longer have any fresh dill; yes, I allowed them to stay and I was rewarded the other day when I saw a black swallowtail butterfly!  I used the 5 tsp of dill weed I had in the pantry, plus I salvaged dill seeds (1 tbls.) from my dried up dill plants.  I reduced the 1/2 cup sugar to 1 tablespoon, as I personally do not care for sweet pickles. I used sea salt and I made my own pickling spice (recipe below).  We had two small jalapeno peppers in the garden, so I chopped those up in lieu of dried red pepper flakes.

If you decide to visit Allrecipes.com and read the reviews, you'll find you can alter this recipe according to your tastes, and it will turn out just fine.  I'm excited for the 10 days to fly by so we can taste these.

1. In a large bowl, combine the cucumbers (I did a combination of spears and slices), water, vinegar, chopped dill, sugar, garlic, salt, pickling spice, dill seed and red pepper flakes.  Stir, and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours, until the sugar and salt dissolve.

2.  Remove the cucumbers to three 1-1/2 pint wide mouth jars, placing 4 cucumbers into each jar.  Ladle in the liquid from the bowl to cover.  Place a sprig of fresh dill into each jar, and seal with lids.  Refrigerate for 10 days before eating.  Use within 1 month.

My yield: Two quarts of spears, and one quart of slices.

Pickling Spice

1 crumbled bay leaf

1 tsp coarse black pepper

1/4 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp coriander seeds

dash turmeric (I didn't have any)

dash cinnamon

Makes approximately 1 tablespoon of spice.

Or to save money, buy your pickling spice in bulk from Monterey Bay Spice Co.  I get quite a few of my spices from them, since spices are so durned expensive in those little tiny bottles at the grocery store!!  Here's a link to their pickling spice, which is made without salt, and while you're there, browse around the other spices and teas. I think I'm going to get some of their pickling spice and their dill weed too.

So, what else are we going to do with all our cucumbers, you ask?  Wellllll, hubby wants to make the Christmas Red Pickles that his mom used to make, so he'll be starting that process on Sunday (it's rather time-consuming).  I found his mom's recipe at Allrecipes.com also... the exact same recipe!

Also this weekend, I'll be making one of my favorite summertime treats, Dilled Cucumbers.  Chilled with sliced cucumbers, sour cream and green onions, it's absolutely divine for a cookout.  I'll post pics and the recipe after I make it on Sunday, along with pics of hubby's red pickles.

Of course, we'll both be taking some cucumbers to work for our fellow employees to enjoy.  :-)

Garden Bounty: the last of the radishes, one tomato, 

a jalapeno pepper, and some cukes!

Here's some additional photos of note

around the ole ranch in the last week or so...

 A gathering storm...

the resulting rainbow...

a black-eyed susan (my namesake)...

our neighboring longhorn...

and another gathering storm at sunset while I'm at work.

And click here to see how adorable my little
granddaughter Leah is at 1 month old!!