Bread and cucumber pickles

It's been a busy couple of days in the kitchen 

and boy was it hot! 

Probably the hottest days so far!

So it was cucumber day, this little lot needed to be used

I used this Bread and cucumber recipe from here I have made them before and there is, quite likely, another post on the blog somewhere saying exactly the same thing, it just saves you looking for it.

BREAD AND BUTTER/CUCUMBER PICKLES

5 medium cucumbers cut into 5 mm slices

350g onions, sliced very thinly

green capsicum and red chilli are optional

50g salt

350 ml cider or white wine winegar vinegar

350g sugar

2 level tablespoons mustard seed

2 level tablespoons celery seed

½ level teaspoon turmeric

¼ level teaspoon cayenne pepper

Slice the cucumbers, onions, capsicums and chilli and place in a bowl, and salt and let stand for 3 hours. 

Drain, rinse under the cold tap and drain thoroughly.(I used my salad spinner for this job)

Bring the remaining ingredients to the boil in a stainless steel saucepan and then add the vegetables. Reduce the heat, bring just to the simmer and cook 2 minutes.

Pour hot into sterilized jars*, making sure the liquid covers the cucumbers and seal.
* Wash the jars, rinse and place in oven tray, I lined with brown paper bags/baking paper, I don't let the jars touch. Put in a hot oven until very hot. I took them out one at at time to fill.

I was given some large Agee jars, and as I was making such a bulk lot of these I used them, I just had to buy lids..

I have this handy funnel that fit's perfectly into the neck of the jars making getting the pickles into the jar. Unfortunately it's just a bit too big for normal jars and I hate having to spoon it in! I get in enough of a mess as it is....

 I used the pusher thingie from my blender/smoothie maker to make sure it all packed down well

The seals need to be soaked in hot water so the rubber softens to allow it to seal

Place it on the top of the jar

And screw the top on really tight, be careful every thing is bloody scalding hot!!!

 I made it all in two of my big pans, this one......

 Which yielded 4 jars

and my preserving pan

  which yielded 3 jars

So yep you guessed it! 7 jars in total..

 The thing is I still had some of the vinegar mix left

and all these cucumbers!

 So ditto above but today instead....

I didn't quite have enough green pepper/capsicum so I added some sliced runner beans

And got 3 large jars and one small which wasn't quite full so we'll use that first

Still there was vinegar mix left , so I bottled that too! It can be used in cooking and on salads

Another job needing doing today was racking off the wine into a clean fermenting bin

That solid block is the must(plum waste)

Sugar added  after dissolving in warm/hot water, lid on, airlock fitted and now we wait.

And that's me done for the day! Done in I reckon

Hope you're all having/had a great weekend