Just Routine Now!

Yup, making pickles is just routine now.  It really is not hard and really doesn't take too long.  Lisa and I have a whole routine now and we can pretty much make both dill pickles and bread and butter pickles in about three hours.  Yesterday was proof of that.  We went shopping in the morning in Greeneville, TN.  The downtown area in Greenville is really neat and very historical.  I have visited the Andrew Johnson Historical Site but most of downtown Greeneville has several historical areas that I could probably make an entire day just walking the downtown area and taking in all the sights.  Once it cools down a bit I will plan a day in Greeneville.  Meanwhile, back at the farm, after spending the morning in Greeneville shopping we got back to the farm just around noon and had lunch.  Then around 1:00 pm Lisa and I got busy with more pickle making.  Tim and George were working on an electrical outlet in the kitchen so we did have to "work" around them.  Lisa finished making grape juice, a sugar free juice this time, and I cut up the first cantaloupe from the garden.  It was delicious.  We had picked five of them the other day and they had finally ripened enough to eat.  Wow, I have never had such a fresh one.  We then started pickling.  We decided to make some more dill pickles but decided to do to the refrigerator dills, they do not have to be processed.  The difference between dill and bread and butter pickles is the vinegar, sugar and salt.  Dill pickles are made with apple cider vinegar, salt, dill seed and garlic where bread and butter pickles are made with white vinegar, sugar and pickling spices.  The dill pickles are cucumbers cut into spears and the bread and butter are slices.  We cut the cucumbers for the bread and butter pickles with a special tool that makes the cucumber slice wavy.  Like I said it is pretty much a routine now to make pickles and it only took three hours to make a half gallon of grape juice and over 24 pints of pickles.  We still have quite a few cucumbers to use up but we have plans for those today.  We are trying something new; cucumber cups!  Curious?  So are we!  Check back and see what they are.