How to Cook a Life full of Love

I cooked a special meal for us With magical ingredients 1 tsp of hope and hard work 1/2 a cup of luck 2 tbsp of chopped romance 500 ml of song and dance 2 large cups of trust And a 100 g of passion is a must … I soaked hope in water and kept […]

via How To Cook A Life Full Of Love — Frank Solanki

In a bit of a Pickle

healthyliving

Pickled Cucumbers

Treasures In The Garden

Today, I was finally able to make time to Prepare,make and bottle my pickled cucumbers .I  made 3 large jars which hold about 15  sliced up cucumbers.. It was quite an easy recipe, and took little time to bring to fruition. The longest time was the cooling process. But I still have loads of cucumbers coming on the vines. So I am going to have to find another recipe to use them up. And yes, I have given loads away and still they keep coming.

This is my recipe.

Ingredients….

Home grown cucumbers

Apple Cider Vinegar

Mustard seed

Coconut sugar Water

Method…. Put jars in the dishwasher on warm wash cycle or on low in the oven to warm.

 Pick, wash  and slice the cucumbers (they can be left whole if wanted)

Pour 600mls apple cider vinegar and 600mls of filtered water into a a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of coconut sugar and bring to the boil (this makes 1.21 of pickling mixture which is enough for 4 x half litre jars of pickled cucumbers). My jars are larger than a half litre. That is why I only got 3 jars of pickles.

Take the jars out of the warmer and pack the sliced cucumber  tightly into the jars.

Bring a separate large saucepan of water to the boil.

Sprinkle a teaspoon of mustard seeds over the cucumbers in the jar.

Pour the pickling mixture into the prepared jars covering the cucumbers completely. Then seal the jars.

Then place the sealed jars in the saucepan of boiling water and leave them for 5 minutes.- this is done to ensure that the pickles will keep for a period of time on the pantry shelf.

Once opened store in the fridge. 

Pretty easy hey!

I didn’t taste test this time. But the look pretty yummy!

 Can’t wait to have with salad or  on cucumber sandwiches.

ENJOY…. the making and the eating.

Getting into a Pickle

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          An abundance of apple cucumbers

These past weeks we have had an abundance of apple and Lebanese cucumbers.

The Lebanese variety I put in our daily juice…. and I had been using the apple variety to put in salads. However the latter variety has gone way past a usable amount to a kind of a glut. So I have made up some mustard pickles to put by in the pantry.

There are are still way too many so my next venture will be pickled cucumbers, but I will share that when I get round to that activity.

The mustard pickles were fairly easy to prepare and cook and not too messy.. so I thought I would share my venture with you. The end result tasted great, but I have to wait for a couple of weeks for them to cure. I ended up with 9 bottles of varying sizes.

So here goes:   Cucumber Mustard Pickles

 

INGREDIENTS:   12 apple cucumbers

1.25 kg onions

3 tablespoons sea salt

4 cups apple cider vinegar

4 cups raw sugar

1 tablespoons natural honey

1 cup flour

1 tablespoon curry

1 tablespoon mustard

Tumeric for colour

 

METHOD:                Peel and chop cucumbers and onions. Place in a non-metallic bowl, sprinkle with salt and leave overnight.

Next morning, drain the vegies well.

Boil the vegies with 3 cups of vinegar for 20 minutes. Add the sugar and honey.

Mix the flour,curry, and mustard with the remaining vinegar, and add to the hot pickle. Simmer for another 20 minutes stirring to prevent burning.

Pack and seal

This makes about 8 x 350 ml jar.

 

Easy peasy. ENJOY!