Claude and I are registered Republicans. Katelyn is very interested in political issues and matters. Monday would be a foray into that arena for her.
But first...Those pickles I got the Wednesday before had to be canned. My plan was to make a double batch of pickle relish and then use the remaining pickles for dill pickles. This would be a good time to have Katelyn learn a little more about canning. I started about 9am and finished about 5pm. Stood on my feet the entire time. Needless to say, I was in no physical mood to go to a political function Monday night.
But first...the pickles...
Linda gave me her pickle relish recipe she got from Scott County Extension office. She made them and made a double batch and was really pleased with the recipe. I never made pickle relish before. I had made green tomato chow chow. I'll now tell you that story from my past.
Many, many years ago on a planet named Denver, Colorado, I lived with my hubby and 3 kids. We had a really good sized garden in our back yard. Every year we borrowed a friends rototiller and Claude would till the soil and spread fertilizer on it. Then we would plant wonderful veggies. We grew beets and I pickled them. We grew lettuce and ate wonderful summer salads. We grew peas and beans, basically for the kids to pick and eat from the garden. There was a zucchini mound. We even tried pumpkins. Of course this list included tomatos because Claude is a tomato lovin' kind of guy.
I was president of the women's organization (Relief Society) in our congregation at the time. My secretary, Cindy, had a little girl the same age as Jacob, my son and youngest child. Carla and Jacob were very good friends. We were having our presidency meeting at my home one day and Carla and Jacob headed out to the back yard to play. There was a lot to do out there (swing set, trampoline, play house, sand box, etc.) so not hearing from them while we were meeting didn't concern us at all. They usually just went and played until we were finished. At the end of our meeting in came Jacob and Carla carrying three, get that, three brown paper grocery bags full of something. On close inspection it was every green tomato growing on the plants. Every single one of them. I looked as Jacob, who was not even old enough for kindergarten at that point, and asked him what happened. He and Carla just looked at us and grinned the most "I'm pleased with myself, arent' you too?" grins you could ever find. Then he said, "We picked every thing that was colorish mom!!" He was so very happy there was not any way in heaven to be mad. It was only tomatoes after all.
But...what do you do with 3 grocery bags of green tomatoes. That is a LOT of friend green tomatos. I went searching and came up with a recipe for canning green tomato chow chow. There was my answer. Didn't know what we would do with it after canning it but at least we wouldn't lose that years crop of tomatos. I diligently bottled those tomatoes. After finishing and waiting the appropriate amount of days, I opened a jar and we tasted it. It was the most AWFUL stuff I ever tasted. We just had to laugh at that years tomato story.
We also had a flower bed along the chain link fence between our yard and the neighbors. I would grow cucumbers and let the vines run up that fence. The cucumbers would hang down making them easy to harvest. I also had a dear friend, Gertrude Warrick, who had a connection with a company that made dill pickles for sale. She could get us at a very reasonable price on pickling cucumbers. They are the best because they have been bred to be just the right size for a quart jar full of pickle spears. Between my garden and Gertrudes connection, I would bottle Kosher Dill Pickles every summer. My kids would eat them through the winter as a treat to have when the babysitters came. The recipe was REALLY easy and came from my mom. Here it is in case you are interested:
KOSHER DILL PICKLES:
1 quart water
1 cup salt
Alum
1 quart vinegar
Red pepper
Bring above ingredients to boiling. Put clean cucumbers into jars (I like using quart jars) with plenty of dill and garlic. (I liked using fresh dill and garlic. I also cut the cucumbes into spears leaving the skin on.) Pour hot liquid over pickles. The more garlic and dill, the better the pickles. A pinch of alum in each jar adds crispness. Then water bath these sealed jars in boiling water for 15 minutes.
That is probably the easiest canning recipe you'll ever run into. And I can vouch for the goodness of the pickle. It is the recipe I would make the dill pickles from this time.
Linda's recipe for the pickle relish is list here also:
Pickle Relish - Should yield 9 pints.
3 quarts chopped cucumbers
3 cups each of green & red peppers
1 cup chopped onions
¾ cup pickling salt
4 cups ice
8 cups water
Spices: 4 Teaspoons each mustard seed, turmeric, allspice & whole cloves
2 cups sugar
6 cups white vinegar
Combine cucumbers, peppers, onion, salt and ice with water.
Let stand for 4 hours.
Drain and recover the vegetables with fresh ice water for another hour.
Combine spices in spice or cheese cloth bag.
Add spices to sugar and vinegar and heat to boiling.
Pour over vegetables.
Cover and let refrigerate for 24 hours.
Heat mixture to boiling, remove spice bag, and fill hot clean jars.
Hot water bath for 15 minutes.
HINT: Linda added 2½ cups sugar and less vinegar to get a sweeter flavor and less vinegary taste. Linda doubled recipe and got 16 ½ pints of relish.
After my day of work, and with Katelyn helping when she was home, I had 16 quarts of dill pickles and 12 pintes of dill pickles and a double batch of pickle relish sitting in my fridge for its 24 hours of resting.
Katelyn got ready and accompanied Claude to a fund raiser and political event at the Pompania (I'm probably butchering that spelling) home. Ryan Quarles is my candidate for the Kentucky House of Representatives. He was going to be there. Our Kentucky State Senator Damon Thayer would be there. But, as luck would have it, U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell was also in town and would be there. (Mitch McConnell spoke earlier that morning at a meeting Claude attended.)
To say Katelyn, who would like to major in Political Science, was excited is an understatement. She would learn a bit more about the process and rub shoulders with some people who do political stuff for a living. She put on her nice dress and curled her hair in a flip. The lady was ready to learn. She and Claude had a very good time. Katelyn was ecstatic to share with her friends and a teacher that she was doing this. Funny how something I take for granted is something she is really relishing.
So it was a good day again. Lots of preserving of food done. And another good experience for Katelyn this summer.
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