Mixed Veggie Pickles

I’ve been kind of quiet on here lately. I think about stuff I want to post and then lose my energy and concentration. However, after two days of pickling, I’m pretty darn pleased with myself so I thought I’d actually post about it. 🙂

So all my readers know I love dills pickles and I’m in search of the perfect dill pickle from my childhood, or at least the memory of what I think was the perfect pickle. 😉 So yesterday I canned 16 qts of dill pickles. Yes, that’s quarts, not pints. I decided that the pint jars were too small. They made great gifts but didn’t last long in the house. I haven’t posted any pics today for those because it’s a cucumber dill pickle… you can see plenty of them on the grocery store shelves.

What I am going to post about are my mixed veggie pickles. I was at the store on Sunday and they had gorgeous heads of orange cauliflower. Now, I usually don’t like cauliflower unless it’s mashed or roasted but I adore it pickled. So then right next to the cauliflower were some gorgeous green beans. Add in some red bell pepper, mushrooms, pearl onions and garlic; you have the perfect combination for mixed pickles.

I used the basic “Pickled Mixed Vegetable” recipe from the book Stocking Up: How to Preserve the Foods You Grow Naturally. I love this book because it’s got very simple, very basic recipes for all types of home preservation. But again, I digress, back to the pickles.

I read over the recipe, decided I liked it and then changed it all around lol.

Original Recipe

2 medium heads cauliflower

2 medium green peppers

2 medium sweet red peppers

1 1/2 lbs onions (6-8 medium onions)

2 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar

1 1/2 cups water

3 TB salt

3 TB mustard seed

3 TB celery seed

1/4 tsp ground tumeric

3/4 cup honey

Break cauliflower up into small florets, cook in unsalted boiling water 5 minutes, drain. Cut peppers into 1/4 inch strips, quarter onions.

Combine vinegar, water and spices in a pot. Heat to boiling.

Add veggies, simmer 2 minutes then add honey.

Continue simmering while quickly packing on clean, hot pint jar at a time. Fill to within 1/2 inch of top. Cap each jar at once. Process 5 minutes in a boiling water bath.

NOW…. that’s not what I did, sort of. I used their proportions of vinegar, water, and spices, leaving out the turmeric. Turmeric gives things a nice yellow color and I already had that from the orange cauliflower. I left out the honey and added some dill stems to the pot. I also added a garlic clove or two to each jar. For vegetables I used cauliflower, red bell pepper, green beans and mushrooms. I misread the instructions and dumped them in before the water/vinegar mix was at a boil. No biggie, I just started canning when they reached a simmer.

Just let me say, this is my first experience with “hot packing.” Usually I fresh pack which is where the cold vegetables go in a jar and get a hot brine poured over the top. Hot packing means you’re backing boiling hot veggies into a jar and trying not to scald yourself. I actually managed to do pretty well but there were a couple of scorched finger tips.

It’s ironic because yesterday I underestimated how much brine I needed and today I over estimated. So I wound up with some extra brine leftover. No biggie, I might just use it to make some pickled carrots tomorrow.

So here’s the pics to go with today’s efforts.