Eating our own homegrown produce throughout the year is one of the benefits of having a large garden but in order to do so it must be preserved. As the tomatoes are ripening I am turning whatever we don’t eat fresh into juice. I will then cook it down into tomato sauce as needed. I did 10 quarts of juice this past week and will be doing more tomorrow.
I also discovered that we had way more cucumbers than we could eat before they went bad, so I decided to make a batch of bread and butter pickles. I haven’t made these in a few years so they will be a nice treat.
Do you do any home canning?
What is your favorite kind of pickle?
Don't Eat It! Soap and Skin Care 
Wow! This is impressive! I love how you used your very own homegrown produce because you’d know how pure it is!
My mom would pickle shrimp and rice… I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.
I make a very grainy guava jam! Hahaha! That’s the best I can do so even if people say it’s grainy and it gets stuck between their teeth… I am still somehow proud of it 😀 😀 😀
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You’re right I never heard of pickled shrimp and rice. I have never had guava jam either so I guess I would not know if it should be grainy or not. LOL! I thin you should feel good about it and I applaud your efforts.
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The pickled rice and shrimp I guess are popular in Asian countries (some parts at least)… I think we pickle almost everything 😅😅😅
Thanks a lot!
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I never have done any canning and neither did my mom, but my grandparents used to make chili sauce – green tomato or red tomato with lots of onions in it. My mom loved this “chow-chow” as it was called and grew up slathering it on toast or over eggs. I have not had a pickle in years, but used to like a good crispy dill spear … the whole pickles you get at the store are soggier than the spears. You sure are industrious Ruth.
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I have never made chili sauce but I think my mom did and my sister does. A good crispy dill pickle is my favorite too.
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After we moved here, my grandmother would buy Red Rose Mixed Bread and Butter Pickles and when we went to visit her, we’d bring a bunch home. Red Rose had pickled onions and cauliflower along with their bread-and-butter pickles. My mom loved those pickles, especially that mix.
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I have never bought bread and butter pickles. Have only eaten homemade.
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My neighbor Marge worked with someone who made bread-and-butter pickles every year – she brought several jars into work so Marge always gave my mom one of them. They were gone in a heartbeat. 🙂
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A long time ago, when I was in my 20s, I rented a house that had all sorts of fruit trees, a current bush and I forget what all. Up the street was a fellow who had a mini-peach orchard in his back yard and he was selling bushels of peaches. I bought one and put up peaches that year; I also had a large cherry tree in my yard and got many MANY bottles of preserved cherries out of that tree. I ate the last bottle in something like 1995, and I lived in the house in the late 1980s. These days? I’m afraid i’m too lazy to do that AND I have no trees any more. Prices for the fresh stuff have sky rocketed around here. My favorite pickle is the sweet pickle, but I adore dill and bread and butter (just not the spicy kind). I just like pickles. Pickled beets are delicious too! ☺
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That sounds like a wonderful rental. Housing and Food! We have currant bushes and although they are a pain to pick I have made jelly, wine and juice with them. They are very tart so I sweeten the juice with honey and it is so good. They also are very healthy. You’re right about prices. We can get sweet corn for $5 a dozen but we were talking to friends from Ohio that said they saw it for $9 a dozen one place and another place for $7 for a 1/2 dozen. That’s outrageous! I don’t know how people could afford it.
I have made pickled beets in the past and love them. We just didn’t grow enough this year for me to make a batch. We’ve just been eating the beets fresh.
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Canning supplies always become hard to come by this time of year but this year lids and rings are impossible to find. Even though I have a lot of jars, I purchased more, just to get my tomatoes put up. Still worth it to have our home canned foods to enjoy this winter. Next year I will be prepared.
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Lids and rings were one of the things we bought early this year as they are essential for preserving. I know your life was chaos at that time. Are you familiar with the Tattler reusable lids? http://tattlerproducts.com/
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Pickled plums are delicious with cold meat and very easy
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Interesting. I’ve never heard of pickled plums. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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Years ago there was a peach orchard in our area, and they sold seconds. I made gallons of peach jam. We ate lots of it ourselves, but jam was our standard gift for teachers and bus drivers. I haven’t thought of that in a long time.
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When we first bought the farm we planted peach trees. They did well for a couple of years and we started to get a few small but delicious peaches. Then we had a very cold winter and lost them all. The orchards in the area lost a lot of trees that year too. I would love to try to grow peaches again but don’t know if it is worth it. Homemade jam makes wonderful gifts. I usually make strawberry.
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John would love that. Strawberry is his favorite flavor. We never found a reasonably-priced source for making strawberry jam.
That’s sad that you lost your peach trees. What about planting one a year? I guess I’d be more willing to lose one than a bunch.l
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I think we may have missed the chance to plant one this year. They are usually more available in the spring. I’m not sure if we could find one now.
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Well, it wasn’t meant to be this year.
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Bread and butter pickles are the best!
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I have fond memories of eating them at my great grandma’s house when I was very young. I think that makes me love them even more. ♥ Funny thing is I don’t think I have ever bought a jar – only have eaten homemade.
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