Eat Pickles!

As I said, I was inspired to try to make pickles. It was easier than the jam. Or at least, it was much more my style. (I learned to cook largely from my Dad whose theory was, "Just throw stuff in until it tastes good.") And, even though hot water has a tendency to splash, it stings much less than hot jam. But I digress....

I followed this recipe--kinda. On the advice of several websites and the lady at the farmers market who sold me the cucs, I tried not to quite boil the jars at the end. Supposedly if you can keep the temperature almost boiling, but not quite, the jars will still seal and the pickles will stay nice and crunchy. Mine did end up boiling a bit at the end, but not for too long. I also couldn't find baby dill sized cucs so I used regular pickling cucumbers (i.e. somewhere between full-sized and tiny) cut into nice thick slices.

All told I ended up with 7 quarts. I'll report back in a few weeks and let you know how they taste.