Easy Pickles

One of the easiest pickles to make is Bread and Butter Pickle, it is also our favourite, we grow ridge cucumbers just for making this lovely relish. It goes well with any cold meat or cheese and is very simple to make.
Preparation.
4lb cucumbers, 1.5 lb of onion.2oz of salt.
Peal and finely slice the cucumbers and onion, place in a large bowl cover with the salt ( to draw the excess fluid out) and leave overnight.
Next day.
Rinse the salt out from the vegetables and drain very well.
Heat 2.5 cups (1pt) of wine vinegar with 1 cup of sugar, 2 teaspoons of mustard seed and 1.5 teaspoons of Turmeric, stir to mix it all together then add the veg and just bring to the boil, cook for 5 minutes , then using a slotted spoon, scoop the veg into clean warm jars, fill them to the shoulder of the jars, then top up with the remaining spiced vinegar mixture. I always used greased proof paper under the metal lids to prevent the lids from corroding. try to store the jars for at least two weeks before eating, they improve with storage.

We seldom get to the two weeks before we start them, they really are a favourite.

The leaves are now starting to change colour, I love this time of year, store cupboards full of jams and pickles, and bottled fruit. A nice warm fire to sit by and the garden more or less put to bed for the winter. It leaves time for craft work and painting, we are hoping to go on a pottery course in the next few weeks, something we have not done before.

Simon has been busy putting the finishing touches to the sunroom, the floor is now tiled and he is doing mosaics for the window ledges, two have been completed so far, and I think they look great, far more interesting than plain tiles although they are quite labour intensive.

My experiment with freezing eggs worked well, I had done them in bags of six and tried out the first lot by making a cake , they worked as well as fresh eggs. But we do now have a regular customer for our eggs, which helps when we have so many.