Sunday, July 26, 2009

Canned






The canning experiment is completed. Among the things I learned:

Lay everything out before heating stuff up; having everything done and no lids sucks.

Canning uses a lot of water, and lots of water takes a long time to heat up.


Water heats up faster if you use a flat-bottomed pot on a glass-top stove instead of one designed for a gas stove.

Packing cucumbers into hot jars can be frustrating and uncomfortable.

The smell of pickling mix can flash one's memory back to Thanksgiving in your great-grandmother's dining room during the early '70s.

The random pings of canning lids sealing can make a pessimistic Wife all happy.


6 comments:

BobG said...

Haven't made cucumber pickles in years; these days I usually just make okra pickles.

MauserMedic said...

BobG,

I haven't heard of those; I thought okra is usually fried.

BobG said...

Okra is good pickled, and is a necessary (IMHO) component in proper gumbo.

Firehand said...

Good pickled okra is good.

Damn, this made me think of Dad's mother; the grandparents had a BIG garden, and what wasn't used fresh she canned.

MauserMedic said...

Firehand & BobG-

I'll have to see if okra grows well in the local temperature zone; I don't recall ever having it, but if it grows here it would make for another new thing to grow next year.

Home on the Range said...

It is good. I don't grow any up here, but used to have it when I lived down south.

I've never seen fried pickles up here either A treat you have to try just once.