Dilly Green Beans

Despite staggering the planting of the seeds, for some reason, my green beans still managed to get ready all at once.  Since I didn't feel like eating them, my sister decided we should just pickle them.  What a lovely idea, I said.

These are so easy, I'm afraid they're going to taste weird. They'll be ready in three weeks so I guess I can let you know how they are then.

We started with maybe a little over two pounds of beans. I sterilized 6 taller half pint jars, the lids, and the rings and kept them in the dishwasher to keep them warm.

We mixed the following to make the brine:

* 3 cups of water

* 1 1/2 cups of apple cider vinegar

* 2 cups of white vinegar

* 1/3 cup salt

* one clove garlic, peeled but kept whole

These were all mixed and brought to a boil.  In the meantime, the beans were rinsed and the ends were trimmed. Into each jar, we added a sprig of fresh dill and 1/8 tsp of red pepper flakes.  The jars were then packed with beans standing on their ends.  Once the brine was ready, we filled each jar up to a quarter inch from the top.  We screwed on the lids and let them simmer in a canning pot for about 12 minutes. Once they cooled, all the lids sealed well so we had a 100% success rate.

So now we wait.  I hope they're good...

Sunday Harvest

We'll be pickling those green beans. And I had Shawn pull the pumpuchinni plant because I hate it and it didn't deserve a place in my garden.  We replaced it with some cucumber plants that a friend gave us.

I'm so tired.

Holiday Weekend Sunday Harvest

Check it out! I have another damn pumpucchini plant. Why does this keep happening? I'm starting to wonder whether I got bad zucchini seeds because this plant was NOT from a seed I saved. Damn. So I picked them early, hoping the young squash will be somewhat more useful than the less-than-useless things I got last year.  I also got a real (yet weirdly shaped) zucchini along with some good sized carrots and a handful of green beans. The artichoke is almost ready...

I hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday weekend. We went up to Vancouver, BC yesterday to see the Whitecaps make the Sounders look like a bunch of fools. But alas, we still had a fun day trip to Canada and ate lots of good food.

P.S.- Next time you're in Vancouver, be sure to hit up Stanley Park. Beautiful!