August 4, 2011
“When you pray for potatoes, you better have a hoe in your hand" - Proverb
Lately, I have summer's glorious bounty of fruits and vegetables on my mind. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I posted on Facebook that I was making my first batch of sweet and sour pickles of the summer, but I didn't have enough cukes.
"Anybody have any extra," I queried on my post.
Whoa, Nelly.
When you pray for potatoes, indeed.
I found cucumbers on the bench by our front door, met one lady at the parking lot at church for a clandestine cucumber drop, and gratefully accepted other donations of cucumbers by the bucketful.
How could I say no?
Around our house, we crave those pickles in the wintertime, so I decided I better roll up my sleeves and start canning. This time, however, I needed to call for backup. There were more cucumbers than I could peel and can by myself.
The hubby, who by the way happens to enjoy peeling cucumbers for reasons that escape me, peeled and peeled long into the nights.
We just passed the 40-quart mark and have 14 more to go, but we are stopping soon, I promise.
Canning lime pickles is not for the faint of heart, by the way. The process involves intense labor, on and off over a period of three days--per batch.
Friends started to call wondering if I was sick. Unfinished projects began to pile up, I didn't get to my exercise program for almost three weeks, and my grandkids thought I'd left the country.
It was none of those things. Seriously, it was the pickles, and believe me, when pickles call to me, they call.
Lime pickles require that they be canned soon after picking. One must peel them quickly and cover with water and hydrated lime (yes, the same lime used on driveways to remove rust stains). The cukes must sit in the lime solution for 24 hours because it is the key to their crispness. Too long in the lime turns them to mush; too little time in the lime ruins them as well.
One must then rinse the cucumbers thoroughly and cover with clear cold water for three hours, drain and cover with "secret" spices and let stand overnight. On the third day, the pickles are ready to cook and boil for at least 35 minutes, put in hot jars and seal.
It is hot, sticky and messy work, but the payoff is a tart, slightly sweet crisp pickle that tastes almost like candy. Worth all the tea in China, as the saying goes.
Yes, I thought our canning work was done when my husband commented that he saw several roadside stands with tomatoes for sale.
"Why don't you post on Facebook that we need tomatoes just like you did for cucumbers," he asked. "I am missing homegrown tomatoes since we didn't plant any this year."
"We could can some whole tomatoes, make some salsa and maybe some sauce," he said longingly. "Sure would taste good next winter," he added to seal the deal.
In case you don't see or hear from me during the next couple of weeks, I'll be in the kitchen stomping tomatoes. After all...
"Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes. What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes? Only two things that money can't buy. That's true love and home grown tomatoes." --John Denver, from a song written by Guy Clark.
