My Best Pickle Story

Whenever I think of making pickles, I think of the first time my daughter, Kim, made pickles. She was about eleven, and decided to make pickles to enter into the county fair. Sometime around July, we found a good pickle recipe. The ones we made were the kind you put together, then let them sit about two weeks before you try them. So, she made the pickles, with my help (I am sorry to say - you will find out later), and we put them on a shelf to sit for a time. A week or so before the county fair opened, we decided we had better try the pickles, so we opened a jar, just for a taste. They were AWFUL. BAD. BAD. SOUR. VINEGAR. Dare I say it?

Kerosene Cucumbers!!!

Do you remember the Andy Griffith Show episode called Kerosene Cucumbers? In that episode, Aunt Bee makes a batch of her normal pickle recipe, which Andy, Barney and Opie know are horrible. Every year Andy, Opie and Barney are forced to eat the pickles to make Aunt Bee feel good about her pickling skills. In the episode they devise a plan to substitute good tasting store bought pickles for the yucky ones Aunt Bee made. Well, of course, everything went wrong. You will have to look this one up.

The point is, Aunt Bee's batch had nothing on the pickles my lovely daughter made.

Now what to do? The kids always liked to enter things into the fair, because there was the possibility of payment. The county fair paid out a few dollars for each blue, red and yellow ribbon. So, Kim decided to enter the pickles anyway.

I will never forget walking into the building to view the children's homemaking entries. My eyes were drawn to the back wall, and there were Kim's pickles - with a BLUE RIBBON! The judges never even opened the pickles, and they looked so good, that they won first place.

Yep, that is my best pickle story.

Well, this month I was away for 2 weeks, and when I returned, I had two very large zucchinis in my garden. What to do? There is only so much zucchini bread a person can eat, and the large zucchinis are a bit tough to eat in most recipes.

I had made zucchini pickles before, so I used a recipe I had adapted years ago. These pickles do not need to sit for two weeks before you taste them!

First, slice the zucchini about 1/4 inch thick. My two zucchini gave me eight cups sliced.

Layer in a large bowl with kosher salt. I used 1/3 cup.

Add cool water, and let them sit for two hours.

Then, drain and rinse.

Mix together vinegar, sugar, celery seed, turmeric and mustard seed.

Heat to boiling, and boil about seven minutes.

Add zucchini slices. Turn off the heat, cover, and let this sit about an hour.

Re heat the mixture to boiling, and let it simmer five minutes.

Pack into clean, hot jars, and cap. Process in hot water bath ten minutes.

Done! When the zucchini is big like this, it only takes one slice to top a burger!