In A Pickle...

This past weekend, a friend brought us a bunch of veggies from his garden! WOO HOO! I really wish we had a garden... but I just do not have the attention span at this point to sit and read about how to garden correctly--then actually do it. So we are definitely excited when people so generously share their vegetables with us! (I must say though... we DO have a pumpkin plant just randomly growing up by our chicken coop!!! haha!)

Pickling cucumbers was in one of the bags of veggies we received, so I found a recipe out of my Nourishing Traditions cookbook to make pickles!

I had to make a trip to the store anyway - so I decided to pick up some fresh dill for the recipe. I kid you not. Practically the WHOLE store was restocked yesterday morning... except for the fresh dill. Of course. In my little town... we have Super Walmart at the far end of town or a small local store. So... I decided to stop at our little rinky dink store on the way home to try to find dill there. Eloise had fallen asleep in the 5 minutes it took me to get there. But I didn't want to lug her inside in the car seat because I swear it weighs like 45 lbs!! AND... this little store doesn't have convenient cart corrals. If you use a cart to take your groceries to your car... you walk the cart BACK to the store. Like I said... rinky dink. So, I get the baby out of the car, she wakes up, we walk inside... aaaaand... no dill. Nice.

I ended up just going home. I was a little frustrated... but decided to call the only other store I know of (in the next town over) to see if they had any dill (before I made a trip out there!!). They said they did. So, after lunch, I loaded the baby back in the car and drove to the store.. Eloise fell asleep in the car - since I had interrupted her earlier nap time. I didn't bother with a cart (again, this store had no cart corral either!)... so I just lugged a sleeping Eloise in her seat through the store! I almost didn't find the dill, I was definitely getting frustrated! But alas, there it was and we were on our way out the door as quickly as I could go with an 18 lb baby in a car seat smacking against my leg as I lugged it!

This pickle recipe I have calls for WHEY. I don't believe this is normal for most recipes... so I had already put out some yogurt to start straining the whey out of it. I made one jar of pickles with the whey I had from before (once I got home with the dill)... and then Eloise and I went to go visit the neighbors. Their baby granddaughter was over for a visit and we like to get the girls together.

(I love Eloise in this pic! She was so excited!)

Later on in the evening, after the yogurt had been strained... I was going to try to gently squeeze more whey out of it... and so I go into the kitchen to do just that... and seriously... there was a giant SPIDER in it! In the whey. Swimming around. I couldn't believe it wasn't dead but maybe it was some kind of freak spider. Definitely a freak spider. I was SO irritated! After going to 3 stores for fresh dill... then to find a spider in my whey!? I tossed the whole batch because... well who knows where spiders come and go and what disgusting things they carry. *sigh* So, Cory helped me to find another recipe online. It said not to use a metal pan to heat the vinegar, etc. (?REALLY?!) UGH. I have ONLY metal pans. So we found another recipe that said we could... so we adapted the two recipes to make our own. Cory helped me redo the math so that we would have enough liquid for the 3 quart jars of cucumbers I had. However, we goofed up on the math and ended up with not enough liquid! Not sure how THAT happened!

It seemed like it was one nightmare after another to make these stinkin' pickles!! The dill, the whey, the math! But finally, we got a few jars made... and they better stinkin' taste good! That's all I have to say about that!!

(Left: Whey Pickles... Right: Regular Pickles)

HUMPH!!!