Well, it went better than those Death Peaches I tried to can a few years ago.
Pre-blog readers may remember the tales and woes of my first-ever attempt to can something all by myself. Thankfully, nobody died, except perhaps from laughter. Now, though, I’m almost an old can hand, what with two years of jam, salsa, and pickles under my apron.
So this morning, with Rob’s help (Lesson #1: Canning is faster and less death-defying when done with a friend), I successfully canned seven pints of homemade pickles. Yes, truly homemade. The cucumbers and the garlic were from our own little deer-proof garden. The dill admittedly was from Albertsons. I just can’t seem to time herb readiness with my canning readiness.
This was my second season of pickles. Thusly, this was a lot more successful than last year. Extremely helpful were my handwritten notes from last year to only use half of the recommended cuke poundage (Lesson #2: A least one measurement in each recipe in the Ball Canning Blue Book is simply whacked – but you don’t know which one until you’ve braved it once). My other reminder to cut the spears to the height of the jar also eased this morning’s pickling fun. Yes, duh, but there are many details in canning and some things just don’t become obvious until it’s too late.
There were really only two head scratchers this morning. First, I wondered if I would ever learn how many cups are in a pint and how many pints are in a quart. I have three measurement conversion magnets on the fridge which I consult often. Rob, however, knows this stuff off the top of his head. I’m always in awe. He cooks less often than I do – and that’s saying something! I remember in second grade being taught both the metric system and our cups/pints/quarts system, with emphasis on the metric. Powers of 10 I get. Varying multiples of 2 still mess me up.
The other thing I eventually wondered this morning was whether or not it was truly wise to be canning while on muscle relaxants. I’ve been having some trouble with my back so I’ve been "enjoying" some new medication for the past week or so. The Zanaflex really didn’t seem to be an issue until I couldn’t figure out how many jars we had processed so far. Mind you, I was staring at 5 jars and kept counting 4. I knew we had 7 total and 2 were left in the pot, so where did that other jar go?? I eventually relinquished my oven mitt to Rob and focused on washing dishes. No need to have tales of Death Pickles 2007.
Lesson #3: Anti-spasmodics and canning don't really mix.
4 comments:
I'm just the same with pints/cups/ounces whatever. Bad enough they're not powers of ten, but they're also just kind of random -- in other words, sometimes you multiply by two to get to the next unit of measure, sometimes by four -- argh! And I think in school I used to drink a half-pint of milk but thought it was a pint, which has forever left me confused.
Now if it were all in liters and such, I could do it without looking it up! (Or asking my husband.) :-)
Cara
Death Peaches was my favorite story by far! I still think you should have used them on the deer. ;o)
Cara -- it gets even worse when you try to convert liquid measurements to weight measurements. Like, how heavy is this 2.34 gallon tub of detergent? I eventually kicked it and since it didn't move, I decided it was probably over my weight limit of lifting.
Eileen -- would you believe I still have a jar in the fridge?!? It's there to remind me not to get too cocky when something I cook actually turns out. So, when we finally get wine-making grapes growing, I have some Death Peaches at the ready to fend off the deer.
One of these days, maybe I'll post that story on the blog. It's a bit long, though.
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