C has been helping with each step of this as we go along and today he told me that it must have been tiring to live in the "olden days" if you had to do this much work! Silly kid! I explained that in the "olden days" we would have been doing it over a fire not the stove. But I think he is having fun.
Step one for cinnamon pickles:
Peel, cut, seed and slice 7 pounds of cucumbers, bigger ones are better but not soft.
Then you take those cucumbers and put them in water with 1 cup of pickling lime for 24 hours. Weight them down with a plate to keep them under water.
Step two:Drain off the lime water and rinse your pickles, and soak in ice water for 3 hours. Don't taste them here! They are gross!
Then you take 1 cup of vinegar
1 bottle of red food coloring
1 T of alum
enough water to cover your pickles
And simmer for 2 hours.
Drain off that liquid and put back in your "soaking bucket"
Step 3:While the pickles are simmering in the food coloring and alum you combine:
3 cups of vinegar
2 cups of water
2-3 packages (8 ounce) of redhot candies
10 cups of sugar (I actually cut mine in half as that seemed like way too much sugar and they taste fine without that much sugar)
Cinnamon sticks
3T Cinnamon powder
Cook over medium low heat until all the red hots are dissolved.
Step 4:Once that is all dissolved you pour that over your cucumbers in the soaking bowl or bucket and weight down with a plate again. Let sit for 24-36 hours in that mixture. The drain off the cinnamon mixture and return to stove top where you heat to boiling. Pack the pickles in jars, pour boiling liquid over them and hot process in a water bath for 15-20 minutes depending on your altitude. Let age for at least 2 weeks for best flavor after sealing, although they aren't bad straight out of the soaking bucket!
School continues to be great! C is really enjoying the new challenges each day and is really relishing the learning process. This is such a dramatic change that I feel like someone literally waved a magic wand over our house! Oh, and K is so jealous he almost cannot stand it! Every day he bursts in the door and asks C what time he got done with school and C tells him, noon or 1 most days...and K says "Man! I can't WAIT for next year!"
I seriously have no idea why all of this is underlined by the way! I really don't want it that way and cannot figure out how to turn it off!
Today's cooking adventure was an easy one since we had meeting to get ready for tonight. Pulled pork sandwiches and "grandma's" pork and beans.
This one only takes a few minutes, plus a few hours! (Oh, look, my underline is gone!) We had a pork roast for lunch on Sunday so then when it is still warm separate the fat from the meat and throw in the fridge. Then this morning C took the meat out and put it in the crock pot with enough bar-b-que sauce to coat it and it cooked all day on low. It is always tender and delicious and we have found out that it freezes really well too! The beans are just a can of Van De Camp beans with a squirt of catsup, mustard and a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, and you have "Grandma Lerwick's beans".We are about half way done with the fruit preserving. We have 21 quarts of peaches and 7 pints of peaches. 5 quarts of pears and 3 pints of pears. 12 pints of peach jam. And one of the pears didn't seal so the kids were eating it and they like it SO much that they want to get another box of pears to put up next week so they have more to eat this winter!
I don't know if C is really going to use much that he is learning this week...he told me that he is going to cook when he grows up but he is not going to can that much stuff because it makes the floor sticky. :) Anyway, our next project, after the canning is done, is friendship bread. We are going to start the sourdough from square one and in a few weeks will have more than we could ever want! So put your orders in for starters if you want any.
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