CraftLee Cucumber Pickle

Autumn is the time for preserving, pickling and jam making in the CraftLee house.

Here's our recipe for Cucumber Pickle
- if you've never tried pickling its a super easy one to start with!
It's much easier than you might think ! (I promise!) Why not give it a go?
The quantity below makes about 8 jam jars worth of pickle .

CraftLee Cucumber Pickle

4 large cucumbers
2 large yellow onions
2 large red onions (or you may also just use 4 yellow onions)
2 green peppers (or a yellow and a green pepper)
All of the above thinly sliced
1/2 cup of salt &
Ice cubes


Prepare all of the above
(a food processor with a slicing attachment comes in super handy here ! )
& place in a large bowl or basin - scatter over salt & mix in
cover with ice cubes , cover and allow to stand for approx 3 hours, mixing occasionally.

While that's standing you can gather your ingredients for the second step....
About 2 pints of white wine or cider vinegar
1 lb 14oz (900g) granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons of yellow mustard seeds
1 & 1/2 Teaspoons of Turmeric
1/2 Teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (or any other colour pepper you may like!)
1/2 Teaspoon paprika (optional)

Sterilizing -
Wash and scrub your jars and lids.
I like to sterilize mine by washing everything then scalding everything
with a kettle of boiling water.
I then place the jars on a baking tray, put tray in oven & turn on to medium heat (about 150degrees)
When oven has reached this temperature set your timer for 15 minutes
Turn off the oven when the time is up but leave jars in the oven until you need them.
Place lids & utensils in a pot of boiling water & boil for 10 minutes.

Finally -
When the cucumber mix is ready - (lots of water will have drained out of them ! )
Bring the vinegar and other ingredients into a very large pan and bring to the boil.
Boil for 10 minutes.
During this time pour the cucumber mix into a colander and allow to drain.(there's no need to rinse)
After 10 mins boiling add the cucumber mix to the pan and bring back to the boil.
Boil for 3 minutes and turn off the heat - its ready to pack into your jars !
Pack well into jars - you'll be leaving lots of the pickling liquid in the pan so don't worry that your not using it all up.
Ensure the rims of the jars are kept clean and then get the lids onto the jars as soon as you can.
Tighten them as much as you can.
Label & date your jars - you can eat the pickle straight away but it's best left for 3 weeks
( if you can wait that long !)

It's a bit of a mix'n'match recipe & no two batches are never the same but its always yummy !

Cucumber Pickles - The one on the left was made using white wine vinegar and only yellow onions - the one on the right is a bit deeper in colour because I used cider vinegar, red onions & smoked paprika.

You can gift your pickles or save them all for yourself but either way they look great with some cute fabric tops to set them off ......
Well done you  & Enjoy !!!!

I've also linked this post to 

House on the way - Twirl & Take a Bow Party 

&

The Tuesday Talent Show at Chef In Training

Siubhan x x x