Garden Cooking

I canned 8 pints of Easy Dill Pickles today.  I also had 3 medium sized zucchini and a bunch more cucumbers.  

We made a recipe from Mother Earth News Web site, and it was delicious.

Quinoa - Zucchini Cakes with Summer Herbs

And with a few of my larger cucumbers, I made a cold salad:

Greek Pasta Salad


The salad was okay, but lacked something.  I think I may use fresh minced garlic vs. garlic salt.  There just seemed to be something missing in the taste, but otherwise good.

Cucumbers Galore!

This is only about 1/3 of the cucumbers I picked this morning.  I've been in the kitchen ever since.

 

This was a totally unexpected day.  I had no idea how busy the bees have been, underneath those cucumber leaves.  I am so glad I peeked today.  Although they were larger than I'd like for pickles, I made them anyway.  We cut one up and tasted it.  Delicious!

I prepared 8 quarts of refrigerator pickles, and still had more cucumbers.

While I sent the girls to town for celery seed, I canned grape jelly. 

When the girls returned, I canned my first sweet pickle relish - 6 pints.


And I still have more cucumbers.........


It's 7:47pm and I am done for the day.  Now I need to go take my laundry off the line.  My three older kids are gone for the night (one went camping for several days), and my husband is gone.  That leaves my 12 and 9 year old to help.  Guess they are doing the folding for me.  It's 89° in my kitchen and I am ready to stop.  Tomorrow may very well bring on another canning day.