Oh My Pickles!

It has begun:  the yearly launch of preserving, canning, and pickling season.  One of my most favorite times of the year!   These are the first three jars of pickles for this season that I canned last night.  AND, they are my own recipe!

If you know me, you know I am enamored of anything "vinegar-y" and will drink the pickle juice out of the jar.  (After the pickles are all gone.  Not while the pickles are still there.  That would be...well, you know.)

My love of pickles and pickle juice is hereditary.  I think I take it after my sweet Granny.  She also loved pickles, vinegar, buttermilk, and other things that I love as well.   Granny was an amazing lady...   An amazing cook, an amazing Christian, and the owner of the greenest thumb I have ever seen!  About ten years ago, she was given some roses.  She literally just stuck one in the dirt at the back porch, and that thing is STILL blooming every year!  

But back to the elixir that is pickle juice.

In the past, I have read Granny's pickle recipes, and the other time-tested recipes in the Pauley Swamp Baptist Church cookbooks, and every other cookbook, Pinterest post, and website I could find.   Every single one had its own little twist that made it unique.  Some folks used a cold canning method.  Some recipes called for boiling the cucumbers in the brine.  Some called for canning salt.  Others called for waiting for a couple of weeks to be able to eat them.   As much as I like pickles, there is NO WAY I could wait a week or more to eat 'em!

After looking at all that, this year I produced my own recipe.   Apple cider vinegar, sugar, a little salt, and pickling spice.  That is it.  That is all I used to make these little jars of goodness...  It is a little spicy, a little sweet, and has that vinegary bite that makes pickles, well, pickle-y.  (How do I know that?  Well, I might have tasted the vinegar mixture.  Or maybe it was more than just a taste.  Don't judge!  Every chef has to make sure their creations are edible right?)

And I cannot wait to break that seal and dig one of those spears of pickle-y delight out of the jar.  Maybe for a midnight snack... or maybe right now...

I'm heading to the kitchen.  I'll let you know how they are!