Home-made Dill Pickles are Great to Make

Have you ever popped a cucumber spear into a jar, poured brine over it, and packed it?  Canning is one of the hot topics of the year, and the reasons are many and varied, but the truth is, if making food that tastes like grandma's is a priority, exploring the roots of the food we eat today is necessary.  Home-made mustard and from-scratch bread-and-butter pickles make an ordinary egg or chicken salad extraordinary. 

Finding food with flavor at home for someone who is not a practiced cook can be a challenge.  Plain dill pickles are one of the easiest and least expensive canned goods that one can make.  They require nothing but some garlic, water, vinegar, and salt, and some fresh dill to make.  The equipment necessary to make them are a hot water canner, a funnel, and quart sized mason jars with lids.  They contain 4 grams of carbs for every 1/3 pound eaten, are fat and cholesterol free, and they are shelf stable and keep well in the fridge for weeks.  This makes them a great snack for work if a crunchy salt fix is needed. 

Cucumbers for pickling are smaller than the big dark green ones that one finds at the regular grocery.  Farmers markets generally have them in abundance in the summer months, as the vines mature, harvests are plentiful, and the smaller cucumbers that are milder and better to pickle are very affordable.  The markets carry dill at these times as well, knowing that many of their customers will be making dills. 

One of the tricks to dill pickles is to remove the blossom end of the pickle.  This is the end opposite the stem end.  There is an enzyme there that softens the pickles.  There are many simple dill recipes available.  Choose one that follows the USDA guidelines for canning pickles, and try it out.