Preserving the Garden - Canning and Pickling!

This is just a picture of one batch of canning!  I have been a busy bee for the last few weekends trying to preserve some of our garden bounty for this winter.  The canned tomatoes are great for spaghetti sauce later, and the pickled okra are great gifts for Christmas.  Pickled okra is great as an appetizer (it tastes like a dill pickle, only better) and it is also great in Bloody Marys.  It is just tons of work to get all that picked, washed, in jars, and then canned.  Especially since the okra is horrible stuff to pick.  It gives me an itchy rash if any part of the plant touches my skin, so I have to suit up to pick it and then hop in the shower right after being out in the rows.  I hope to be done with all the canning by next weekend.  Okra is easy to pickle though, once it is picked and washed. 

Pickled Okra (makes about 4 pint jars)

3 cups water

3 cups white vinegar

1/3 cup salt

2 tsp dill or dill seeds

4 cloves of garlic

3 1/2 lbs small whole okra pods

1.  Prepare jars and lids in boiling water to sterilize. (I run my jars through the dishwasher, high heat, and I put my lids in boiling water in a saucepan where I leave them until I am ready to fish them out and use them.

2.  Put dill, garlic, and okra into sterilized jars.

3.  In a saucepan combine water, vinegar, and salt.  Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve salt.  Reduce heat to low but don't take off heat.

4.  Ladle hot liquid into prepared jars.  Put a sterilized lid on each jar and place jar upside down (inversion method of canning)

5.  When jars are cooled turn them right side up and test the lid to see if they are sealed.  There should be no resistance in the lid.  (The boiling liquid causes the lid to seal).  If the jars aren't sealed (sometimes they just don't seal) then place them in a pot of boiling water (enough water to cover the top of the jars) for 15 minutes. 

Wait at least one week before eating the pickles in order for them to "cure."  But if you leave them sealed, they can be stored in the pantry for up to one year.