Phelps Family: Pickles Anyone?

We are apart of a co-op where you can get a produce basket with tons of fruit and veges for super cheap. This last week they offered a 35 lb. box of pickling cucumbers-- so I called Darin to see if he was interested. Sure enough, we are a family of pickle eaters so we decided to try pickling our own cucumbers. 6+ shopping trips later, 26 quarts, 14 pints and 9 8-ounce jars later we are done. I have to say I'm impressed with my efforts especially since I'm 34 1/2 weeks pregnant and have a 3 1/2 year old and a 1 1/2 year old on top of this all. The only real casualty is a very sticky floor (sorry Darin, especially since he had just mopped it 3 times on Sat. to get all the previous stickiness away.)

You will see that Daniel had an absolute blast helping me out. Every afternoon he allows me to take a nap while Rylie is napping. Yesterday, he was so excited to see me when I woke up. His first question was "Are we going to make pickles now?" He had already started lining the cucumbers up by size just to help me get started. Cute kid. I gave him the job of putting the pickles into the bleach water so they could get cleaned, and then to transfer them to the clean water. He was really on top of it and actually a huge helper. He also loaded all the bottles into the dishwasher. He did try to sneak a ton of cucumbers, but really- who can blame him. They really were tasty and they are vegetables so why should I stop him. He helped me for over an hour, all up until Rylie woke up. Rylie showed some interest, but she had a bad habit of taking one bite out of each cucumber and playing in the water-- so I finally sent them off to play another place.

I had to laugh how many shopping trips I did have to make. I had wanted to buy my own canner, but found out at a 2 different stores that canners are a seasonal item. Thank goodness I have a friend who was willing to lend me hers. I then went to the store 5 times-- once for bottles, once for more dill pickling packets (actually Darin did this one for me), once for another batch of bottles (got the 8-ounce accidentally), so once again for another batch of bottles, then this evening I went again to get some herbs so I could try a batch of bread and butter pickles since I still had tons of cucumbers left over after using all my quart and pint bottles. I think our local Frys has greatly appreciated our donations to keeping them up and running.

So here is to a total of 49 bottles of dill and bread and butter pickles. Anyone else a fan of pickles? You are more then welcome to come join us in enjoy our bounty!

Here you can see Daniel loading the bottles into the dishwasher.

The box of cucumbers.

Daniel's initial efforts of organizing the cucumbers. Look at his smile. Can you see how excited he is.

Daniel got creative in how he would transfer the pickles from the bleach solution to the water. Daniel loves to figure out different ways to do things. He has always had such a curious mind.