More Canning

Well, More canning has been in our agenda lately--my projects have included sweet pickles, strawberry jam, peaches, peach jam, and watermelon jelly.

So, about watermelon jelly--this is purely experimental. My brothers run a watermelon farm, so since they are in great abundance, we thought "why not?" It seemed to taste good, tasting a little out of the batch. It'll be interesting to see. Maybe we'll become famous and have a booming watermelon jelly business.

I wonder how many people know about making sweet pickles. The process is quite interesting. But this is my great grandma's recipe (it's in my cook book for those that have one) and it's very good. Nothin' quite like them, really. This is how they're made: Wash your cucumbers, cut into bite size pieces. Soak them in salt water for 2 weeks. At the end of two weeks, there is a disgusting thick layer of mold on top of the water (it doesn't touch the pickles). So you skim it off, and pour off the water. Then you do stuff to it for 6 days. 1-pour boiling water on them. 2-drain, pour boiling water with alum in it on them (alum keeps them crisp) 3- pour a boiling syrup made with vinegar, cinnamon sticks, sugar, cloves, and mace on them. 4- drain syrup into a pan, reboil it, pour it over again. 5- do the same as #4 6- drain, boil syrup, then pack pickles and syrup in jars.

I should have taken a pic of the mold, but I didn't think of it till after the fact. Anyhow, here's a few pix of my latest labors.