Halloween Pickle

Okay, most people don't spend the morning of Halloween pickling vegetables, but the truth is, our fridge was full of goodies from Johnson's Backyard Garden and it was the only day we had to get it finished! We set up an assembly line, put on some Reckless Kelly and Robert Earl Keen and got to work. We based our dilly bean recipe on the one in the Ball Blue Book, but you could also try this recipe from AllRecipes.com. The pickled eggplant, squash and mushroom were this Jamie Oliver creation. Be sure to use the wide mouth jars so that you can pack in all the vegetables with ease. Each recipe made 4-6 jars so you'll have some for gifts around the holidays...although I'm not sure they'll make it until then. Leave them in a cool, dark cabinet for a few weeks to enhance the flavors. Happy pickling!

Our assembly line...and a little child labor

Lots of green beans from our Johnson's Backyard Garden CSA box and our Hinklehatz peppers

We added fresh dill, whole garlic cloves, the Hinklehatz peppers from our garden and some green onion.

We used a variety of herbs from our garden to pickle the eggplant, mushroom and squash. 

Pickling marinade

Boiling the vegetables in the pickling liquid

Tossing the veggies in the pickling marinade

Our big helper, Clay

These beauties are in our cabinet for the next few weeks taking a bath in that delicious pickling marinade!