Garden Harvest

We have been getting so much from the garden this year. I have canned 15 quarts of garlic dill pickles. We gave some away took some to work, and the kids are loving them as snacks or on sandwiches or wraps.

Recipes From the Garden: Garlic Dill Pickles

This is my Nana's recipe and I modified it slightly. This makes 6 quarts.

Garlic Dill Pickles

Ingredients:
Cucumbers (amount needed depends on size of your cucumbers)
Dill 6-12 heads fresh and 2 Tbsp dill seed or if no fresh dill, 12 Tbsp dill seed
Garlic 6-12 cloves and 2 Tbsp minced
Vinegar 3 quarts
Water 3 quarts
Canning Salt 1 Cup

Directions:
1. Wash cucumbers and pack in sterilized qt jars. You can do whole cucumbers, slices, or spears, whatever works with the size of cucumbers you are working with. My cucumbers are HUGE so I used spears and slices for all of my pickles.

2. Add 1-2 clove garlic and 1-2 heads of fresh dill to each jar. If you can't find fresh dill you can use 2 Tablespoons dill seed per Qt.

3. Bring to a boil equal parts white vinegar and water (3 qts each) and 3/4 to 1cup canning salt. Be sure to use a non reactive pot, NO COPPER! I also added 2 Tbsp minced garlic and 2 Tbsp dill seed to the brine while it was boiling to give it a little more garlic dill flavor.

4. Pour brine into jars and seal according to your preferred canning method. I used the hot water bath method for sealing the lids.

Recipes From the Garden: Strawberry Pie

One of my fond childhood memories is eating strawberry pie that my mom made. I have tried to find a recipe similar to hers and at one point had her recipe although it is lost somewhere in a drawer or something, but I made this pie for the 4th of July lunch we had at a neighbor's house. It was definitely similar to my mom's. They were so good, and the kids loved them just as much as the grown ups. The best part is it is esentially no bake, so all you do is bake the premade crust until browned, and heat the filling on the stove top, easy as "pie".

Strawberry Pie

Ingredients:
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup cool water
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 package (3 oz.) strawberry gelatin
1 quart fresh strawberries- sliced
1 (9 inch) baked pie shell

Directions:
Put cool water, sugar and cornstarch in saucepan and cook over very low heat, stirring, until clear (about 3 to 5 minutes). Remove from heat and mix in gelatin and lemon juice. Arrange strawberries in pie shell and pour sauce over. Chill 4 to 6 hours or overnight and serve with Cool Whip or whipped cream.

Garden Harvest

Loving the garden

I have been SO busy, but am loving the garden. We are finally getting some zucchini. So we now have tons of tomatoes and cucumbers, and squash, zucchini, and okra. We also have baby corn and jalapeno peppers, just waiting on them to get bigger.

I canned 6 quarts of garlic dill pickles this weekend. I made 3 quarts of dill chips and 3 quarts of dill spears. I have never tried to can or pickle before, but it really was not too bad.