Saturday, July 10, 2010
Let's make watermelon rind pickles.
First, buy the ingredients, including canning jars. Be amazed at how expensive everything is. Next, slice up a watermelon, remove the red stuff for Lisa to give to her 27-year-old horse, and peel and cut up the rind, soaking overnight in salty water.
Watermelon rind, after soaking.
Next, cook until soft and fairly translucent.
Cooked.
In a piece of cheesecloth, put cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, mustard seed, and allspice. I was supposed to use whole allspice, but had to use the ground variety instead.
Tie up the spices inside the cheesecloth.
Then put seven cups sugar, 2 cups vinegar, the spice bag, and one lemon thinly sliced in a pot, heat until boiling, then simmer 10 minutes.
Spicy mixture.
Next, forget to take pictures of the next couple of steps. These included adding the cooked rind to the spice-sugar-vinegar mixture and cooking it some more, then boiling the jars and lids and burning your fingers as you pull them out. Ladle the pickle mixture in, making sure to burn your fingers some more, affix lids [burned fingers again], and boil some more.
Watermelon rind pickles.
This was the first time I have ever canned anything on my own. At the moment, I have no clue as to whether the lids are properly affixed. In addition, I tasted the pickles and they are very salty, apparently I either didn't rinse the rind enough or the salt really penetrated the rind. They still are pretty good.
Next batch, less brining. Also, need better canning equipment include one of those things to lift the jars out of the boiling water.
Newer› ‹Older
First, buy the ingredients, including canning jars. Be amazed at how expensive everything is. Next, slice up a watermelon, remove the red stuff for Lisa to give to her 27-year-old horse, and peel and cut up the rind, soaking overnight in salty water.
Watermelon rind, after soaking.
Next, cook until soft and fairly translucent.
Cooked.
In a piece of cheesecloth, put cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, mustard seed, and allspice. I was supposed to use whole allspice, but had to use the ground variety instead.
Tie up the spices inside the cheesecloth.
Then put seven cups sugar, 2 cups vinegar, the spice bag, and one lemon thinly sliced in a pot, heat until boiling, then simmer 10 minutes.
Spicy mixture.
Next, forget to take pictures of the next couple of steps. These included adding the cooked rind to the spice-sugar-vinegar mixture and cooking it some more, then boiling the jars and lids and burning your fingers as you pull them out. Ladle the pickle mixture in, making sure to burn your fingers some more, affix lids [burned fingers again], and boil some more.
Watermelon rind pickles.
This was the first time I have ever canned anything on my own. At the moment, I have no clue as to whether the lids are properly affixed. In addition, I tasted the pickles and they are very salty, apparently I either didn't rinse the rind enough or the salt really penetrated the rind. They still are pretty good.
Next batch, less brining. Also, need better canning equipment include one of those things to lift the jars out of the boiling water.
