a pickle experiment.
okay, so something you should know about me is that sometimes i like to be a good suzy homemaker and do things like make pesto and can beets and pickles. i did a whole canning day with my mom last year, and that was maybe the day i felt most like laura ingalls wilder. and if you know me at all, you know that she is my hero and i would very much like to be her.i've been trying to be better at doing these things myself, but sometimes an episode or four of the real housewives of somewhere also sounds like a good idea, and then the entire evening is gone, and i have no idea why i have no time for anything. and finding time is really the hardest part of canning and pickling things.so far my track record for pickling is about .500. the first time i made dill pickles on my own, it was in the tiny kitchen of my studio apartment, and they turned out amazing. all the jars sealed and the pickles were delicious. the next time i made them, i got greedy and made too many jars at once, and it was a failure. only half the jars sealed, and because i was not prepared, i used the wrong type of dill and so they even looked disgusting in the jars.this year, i decided to do a practice run. some friends and i are going to have a canning day this fall, and dammit i am not going to ruin pickles for them too. so i picked up some ingredients at the farmer's market this weekend (got totally swindled into buying too many bunches of dill by a smooth-talking, 8-year old boy in the process), and made a small batch of pickles on tuesday night. the jury is still out on these, but it's looking good so far. if they turn out, i might post the recipe i use. would anyone out there be interested in that? if not, that's cool too, but i'm here to be useful so let me know!