Pickles - Bread and Butter Chips

It's August and time to use all those cucumbers! Even the many variations of cucumber salad can become tiresome. Time to try pickles.

I've never pickled cucumbers before, but I have known people who make delicious versions and all my recipe books have their own favorite. I chose to start with a simple bread-and-butter chip pickle recipe in which the first line reads, "Looking for a first pickle to make? Pick this recipe." How could I say, "no?"

The process begins with chopping cukes and onions, salting, and letting rest in an ice bath for two hours. Mine actually ended up in the salty ice for about five hours, just because that's the way life goes. I don't think it affected them one way or another.

I had planned on using mustard seed from my garden in my pickles. Alas, it's not quite ready. So, I used what I had and figured it didn't have to be perfect the first time.

All in all, the process was rather simple. After the cukes soak, they are rinsed and you mix up your pickling brine. The cukes are brought to a boil in the brine, packed into canning jars, and sealed (for proper canning techniques, consult a published recipe). I learned my lesson canning plums; this time I really packed those pickles in the jars. Consequently, there were pickle parts all over the place- thank goodness I had set up my outdoor canning kitchen. The overflow did give me a sneak-peak taste at my new pickles though. Success! I really like them. And I think they look pretty good too.