Zucchini Pickle

I dread pickling.

Pickling means hours of prep work. Followed by hours of standing around in a hot kitchen with vinegar and water vapors filling your space. It definitely is not a pleasant task to be performing during a hot summer day.

So... I've been avoiding pickling this season. But the eggplant and squash plants are going absolutely NUTS! Ken D's asked me to pickle his extra produce in exchange for some of the products. He had at least a dozen large yellow zucchini and cocozelles.

I was actually pretty excited to help. I'd gotten a Better Homes and Gardens magazine on Canning which had some a small section on zucchini pickles, and I can't help but to try out some new recipes. I decided to go with the bread and butter zucchini pickles, hot and spicy zucchini pickles, and a sweet zucchini pickle using my favorite pickling mix from the OB People's Food Co-op.

So the first step to crispy pickles is to slice and salt them. You want most of the water to leach out of the pickle, sort of drying them out so that they absorb the vinegar better. But you have to do it cold otherwise your pickles come out mushy. Several recipes recommend making a brine of salt and cold water and soaking your zucchini slices in it at room temp. It's easy to do so if you have the fridge space or plenty of ice, but with several gallons worth of zucchini I had to improvise a bit. The huge bucket and colander I purchased for making kimchi came in pretty handy. I sliced and salted the zucchini, then I mixed in a few pounds of ice cubes into the zucchini and let it sweat in the colander fitted into the bucket and let it sweat for a few hours.

(Ran some errands and washed all my jars.)

Came home and rinsed out zucchini to wash away the extra salt and the canning began.

First thing you've got to make sure when canning is to make sure everything you use is sterile. I cleaned and wiped down the counter top and began boiling LOTS of water. Pour boiling water into all your clean, dry jars and cover with foil until you're ready to use them. Then get more water boiling for your water bath.

Make your pickling solution of vinegar and sugar and bring it to a boil. Add your spliced zucchini and onions into the mix and bring back to a boil. (Recipe says you should bring to a boil and simmer the vegetables for 5 minutes before packing the jars. I drop the vegetables in and wait for it to start boiling.) Once it starts to boil, dump out the water from the jars and fill them with the hot vegetable mixture. I like to fill my jars about 80% full from the top. Add your pickling spice (or peppers, garlic, bay, etc) on top of your hot vegetables and pour the hot vinegar mixture to top off the jars. Then its important to use a dinner knife or a spatula to help air bubbles escape to the top. (Stir the inside of the jar using your tool to free air bubbles.) Check the level of the vinegar, there should be a 1/2 inch gap from the top. Clean the lip of the jar and assemble the two piece lids. Screw on the lids just enough so that there's resistance but not too tight that air can't escape it when you set it in the water bath. Boil the jars for at least 10 minutes. I used quart jars and boiled for 20 minutes to make sure that jars are completely sterilized. I also did it for a longer time since I didn't simmer the vegetables prior to packing the jars.

Anyways, after almost 8hrs of pickling I've got 16 quart jars and 12 pint jars for a total of 5 gallons of zucchini pickles! This was round one. I still would like to make more of the Italian style zucchini pickles, where the pickles are preserved in olive oil instead of the vinegar solution. Maybe next weekend?

If you want a complete recipe let me know I'll update the post.