It has begun. Getting the first run of pickles down today, first run of kraut, tomorrow.
Game on.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
We are aware of all internet traditions.
Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.
Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.
Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.
The revolution will be supervised.
A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.
Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.
Not all heroes wear capes.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
Infrastructure week. at last.
John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania. Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.
Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.
The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.
Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.
Second rate reporter says what?
Peak wingnut was a lie.
The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
This fight is for everything.
Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?
Dahlia
Are those regular or half-sours?
JoyceH
I just saw a news report that Trump has gone golfing today with Lindsay Graham. The Trump course is in Sterling Virginia. As it happens, I am in Sterling Virginia, and I just took the dog out. The temperature is 95 degrees and the heat index is surface-of-the-sun. Anyone voluntarily going out in this for several hours of recreation had proved their mental incapacity beyond a reasonable doubt. But we already knew that. (And how is it that the Secret Service hasn’t mutinied yet?!)
Gin & Tonic
@Dahlia: Generally the difference between half sour and sour is just time.
trollhattan
@JoyceH:
This makes me objectively pro-sun. You go, sun!
Can one still burn when covered in orange paint?
donnah
John, have you devoured or given away last year’s bounty? I wonder how long your canned good last per year.
Maybe Trump ordered all of the flags on the golf holes to be lowered to half staff as a tribute to John Lewis.
Anonymous At Work
@JoyceH: Secret Service are consummate professionals. They’d never complain about anything on their job in the hearing of any other human being. If Trump was blatantly over-charging them for everything, a GAO audit would be the only way to find out; they’d never tell.
Nor should they. The second that they give a President a reason to distrust their integrity, they will have killed a future President.
LuciaMia
Love making pickles but Im the only one in my family that likes them. (Not mine specifically, just pickled veg in general.) Still want to try my own kraut.
WaterGirl
Holy shit that’s a lot of cucumbers!
hamletta
I bought a Mason jar fermentation kit: a venting lid insert and a glass weight for a wide-mouth quart jar. Finally got some cabbage to try it out.
rikyrah
I get a strange sense of comfort with your canning posts. Please continue with them.
dr. luba
You’re obviously not Ukrainian. We would say sure, good, but what about for next week?
WaterGirl
@dr. luba: That was laugh-out-loud funny!
DocH
I see your cukes and raise you some green walnuts!
pamelabrown53
@dr. luba:
LOL! I must not have a drop of Ukrainian blood in my veins-rarely eat pickles. Still, like rikyrah at #10, I feel comforted.
Murc
I almost never comment here, but as a pickler myself, I gotta ask: what’s your brine mixture like? The water/vinegar/salt proportions? Sugar or no sugar? Are you doing heat bath, or no?
joel hanes
@JoyceH:
Trump is a not an Englishman, so I think we can deduce that he is a mad dog.
White & Gold Purgatorian
Those are nice looking cukes! Our cucumbers had a pretty good run but have slowed down a lot in the past week, as have the pole beans and tomatoes. Last week may have been “peak garden” at our house and, after preserving all day every day for the last 10, I will be glad for a slow down.
This morning I was trying to decide how many more mason jar lids I might need this year so looked back through the preserving records. In 1998 we put up a total of 319 jars. In 2012 it was 293. As of yesterday we are at 216 jars for 2020 and it is only mid July. So yes, I’m ordering more lids. As a long time canner and pickler, I really enjoy seeing and hearing what others are doing to preserve their harvests. There are so many wonderful things you can preserve that simply can’t be purchased at the grocery store.
J R in WV
I love sauerkraut, was introduced as a tiny tot, granddad was Switzerdeutsch and loved it, so southern grandmother would bake it with short ribs. Lately I have learned that baby back ribs work well with the kraut. The best available at Kroger’s is Bubbies, which also makes fat dill pickles and sliced bread and butter pickles which aren’t too sweet. I add more vinegar to those B&B pickles as soon as I open the jar.
Sugar in pickles is a horror to me. Same for corn fructose as well. Just not needed.
Anyway, where I was going, brine recipes would interest me too!! Even if you use some sugar!
joel hanes
@Murc:
Murc :
Best I could find in the BJ archives was John’s discussion from last year:
I used a couple cups of distilled white vinegar, water, some pickling spices, some black peppercorns, some dried chilis, salt, and brought it to a boil on the stove.
joel hanes
@J R in WV:
Sugar in pickles is a horror to me
I could live without sweet pickles EXCEPT that chopped sweet pickles and a couple tablespoons of sweet pickle juice are one of the essential ingredients in my sister’s recipe for killer midwestern-style potato salad.
And I like the sweet pickle component of tartar sauce
And sometimes a little pickle relish on a hot dog with the onions
My aunt used to make pickled watermelon rind and bring it to the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. Boy is that sweet.
JoyceH
I was just at the grocery store and everyone was wearing a mask, though a few people (all men) were wearing the mask below the nose. One fellow had the mask all the way up to his lower lip, and was leaning around the plexiglass to talk to the clerk.
We need an insulting nickname for these people. Since the mask is supposed to cover your two breathing orifices, nose and mouth, I propose neck breathers or chin breathers. Which sounds more insulting. Usage – “Pull up your mask, you neck breather!” “Man, the 7/11 was full of chin breathers today!” Opinions?
DocH
@JoyceH:
maskholes
Also approp for the barefaced.
NotMax
The eternal question:
Why isn’t it called “jarring?”
;)
Those of us without a spare inch of space in which to store the stuff are duly impressed. Remember when in Minnesota being given a tour of shelf after shelf in someone’s parents’ basement, each laden with jars of homemade tomato juice. Along with the information that none of it was intended for use in anything other than Bloody Marys. (Impressive wet bar in the living room, it almost goes without saying.)
opiejeanne
@White & Gold Purgatorian: You must have a mighty garden and live somewhere fairly warm. My husband’s grandma used to can in similar amounts as you do, but she bought the fruit along the roads in Oregon where they camped in their trailer. Grandpa fished and she canned on these road trips every summer, and they visited old friends along the way. They lived in Carlsbad, Ca and would drag the very basic trailer behind their car every summer, well into their 80s. She drove, thank God. Their garage was lined with 8′ tall shelves along one wall and we were not allowed to leave empty-handed when we visited.
Our cukes look a lot like John’s photo, but we only have enough so far for a couple of jars of pickles. They are nice to eat fresh, so that is our consolation: salads of French breakfast radishes, sliced cucumbers, sugar snap peas, and Simpson’s black-seeded lettuce.
https://www.flickr.com/gp/snowwhite/5S91R6
The garden has struggled with the cool rainy spring and early summer weather, but today it will be nearly 80, so things will start growing (finally). I have never had to coax zucchini to grow like I have this year and most of the climbing beans refuse to climb, while a couple of bush beans have decided that they are climbers. It’s hilarious to watch one of the non-climbers gain an average height of 7 inches each day.
Kay
I wish you were closer. I have a lot of spiny little cucumbers because I like the pickling kind raw, and I don’t make pickles. No one else in my family eats them. I’ve been taking them to work.
I don’t recall the variety but they’re cute- about 3 inches long. I only have two plants but they went crazy- out of their raised bed and into the path and then on to the next raised bed.
NotMax
Coming soon to a drive-in near you: The Gherkins That Devoured Cleveland.
:)
scav
@NotMax: Probably pretty much because the word can (and the general process) is older than the metal technology bit.
NotMax
@scav
Takes no art to do a can-can,
It is so simple to do,
When you start to do a can-can,
‘Twill be so easy for you.
If a slow Mohammedan can,
If a kilted Scottish clan can,
If in Wagner a Valkyrian can,
Baby, you can can-can too.
If a lass in Michigan can,
If an ass in Astrakhan can,
If a bass in the Saskatchewan can,
Baby, you can can-can too.
– Cole Porter
:)
Jay Noble
@Anonymous At Work: Something that I haven’t seen and that really bugs me is why in all the George Floyd debacle have I not seen any mention of the Secret Service getting involved. They are in charge of investigating counterfeiting which is what Floyd was accused of – passing a fake $20. Crickets
Yutsano
You see pickles, I see oi sobagi ready to be stuffed!
dr. luba
Meant to post this earlier: my aunt Nina’s recipe for refrigerator pickles. They are ready to eat in 24 hrs, last 2 or so weeks in the refrigerator, and are delicious.
Use clean Mason (or similar) jars. Pack them solidly full of fresh cucumbers which have been sliced lengthwise into haves or quarters. At the bottom of the jar and on top, pack in some sliced hot peppers, sliced cloves of garlic and fresh or dried dillweed.
Over top, you are going to pour the hot pickling syrup. To make the syrup, boil together
10 c water
1 c sugar
1 c vinegar
1/2 c salt
(Make less if you don’t have a lot of cucumbers.) The syrup must be hot when poured over the cucumbers. If it cools down, reheat it. Make sure the syrup completely covers the contents of the jars. Remember, the cukes have to be packed in very tightly so they don’t float away in the syrup.
Put the jars out on the counter to cool and set overnight. The next day, pickles should be ready to eat (unless the cucumber slices were particularly thick). Refrigerate.
karensky
Mmm, pickles!
scav
@NotMax: How many cans can a can-can can if a can-can could can cans?
White & Gold Purgatorian
@opiejeanne: We live in north Alabama so it is fairly warm, although we have been wetter and a bit cooler than usual. Yes, 2020 has been crap but the garden has been a major morale booster. We had lettuce to die for through mid June and the best crop of French breakfast radishes in 20 years. Temps now are in the mid nineties. I wish our pole beans were shorter because I can’t reach the top even from a small stepladder. Right now we have dill taller than me and very few cucumbers to use it with. I’m going to make some dilly peaches. Never had them but we have peaches from the local orchard and lovely dill, so perhaps it is meant to be.
We have been gardening here for a long time and have kind of figured out what works, but branched our a bit this year because of concerns about food supply and a reluctance to go shopping. For instance, we planted Malabar spinach as a lettuce/spinach substitute during hot weather. It turned out to be great on sandwiches and I plan to cook some with scrambled eggs next week. We last grew it in 1992 and all we remembered was that it tried to take over the garden and volunteers came up everywhere the next year. Glad we gave it another try. Unfortunately it is beginning to bloom. Must clip those off!
Did your hubby’s grandma actually can on one of those little stoves in a camp trailer? That is dedication. Most of the older folks in my family had pantry shelves like that. It was just the way people lived. My sister says why go to all the work of canning when it is so easy to buy stuff at the store, but I got the preserving bug young and have always enjoyed it. Haven’t canned anything today, but did freeze some blueberries, so that kind of counts. Berries have outdone themselves this year, too. We also got a few apples off the apple tree and some grapes from the grape vine for a change. Not yet satisfied with all this bounty, we are now eyeing the pawpaw tree, hoping to get more than a taste of that as well.
Happy growing … and eating!
opiejeanne
@White & Gold Purgatorian: His grandma did can all of those jars of food on the little stovetop in the little trailer. They tried to sell it to us when they finally decided they were not going to use it any more, and when we saw the inside of it we were appalled by how spartan it was. Just a bed, a stovetop and I’m not sure it even had a sink. No toilet, no room for one.
We’re just east of Seattle, about 12 miles from downtown if we were birds. We’ve been here for 10 years and it took a couple of years to figure out which tomatoes do well here. I think we grew 17 varieties the second year. We have a 10×12 greenhouse that we bought as a cheap kit from a place called Harbor Freight, and it really was cheap. I think we’ve spent nearly the same amount shoring it up and replacing the polycarbon panels with heavier ones, but now it has an exhaust fan and a solid skeleton so it doesn’t blow apart every time we have a wind storm. Because of the cool weather I am growing a tomato, a couple of peppers, and a cantaloupe plant inside the greenhouse, coaxing them to grow vertically, and it’s working, but the tomato is taking over its corner, going up higher than the side walls. my husband built benches out of the remains of our fence, after it was knocked down, but I’m considering taking one of them out and having a row of big pots on the gravel floor to grow more peppers and tomatoes because peppers won’t set fruit outdoors here, usually, and I’ve been hand-pollenating the ones in the greenhouse.
Sloegin
@JoyceH: Branch Covidians
xjmuellerlurks
Ms. XJ is making chow-chow today, using the cabbage we bought from a woman who works with our daughter. The heads are yuuuge! We also got green tomatoes from her about a week ago. Ms XJ may finally use them to make a relish. She’s been frying some for din the past week and they have been spectacular. We have to do something with them before they start to age out – there are about a dozen ripening on the counter now. The next few weeks will be interesting as her garden starts to really produce. This is the first time in the three years we moved here that she’s had a good garden. The spring weather had the right mix of rain/sun and it didn’t get stupid hot until after the Fourth of July.