Pickles and Relishes Sweet Garlic Dills

12 - 16 small pickling cucumbers (about 4 lbs)
4 large cloves garlic
4 heads fresh dill or 4 tsp. dill seeds
1/2 tsp. celery seeds
2 c. white vinegar
2/3 c. water
1 c. granulated sugar
3 tbsp. pickling salt
1/8 tsp. turmeric

Cut a thin slice from the ends of each cucumber. Cut cumbers lengthwise into quarters.

Remove hot jars from canner. Place 1 clove garlic, 1 head fresh dill or 1 tsp. dill seeds and 1/8 tsp. celery seeds into each jar; pack in cucumbers.

Meanwhile, combine vinegar, water, sugar, salt and turmeric in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour boiling vinegar mixture over cucumbers to within 1/2-inch of rim (head space). Process 10 minutes for pint jars and 15 minutes for quart jars.

Makes 4 pint jars.

*** I ended up with extra cucumbers sliced, had to make more of the vinegar solution. So I ended up with 6 jars of pickles.

Homemade Orange and Lemon Extract

2 or 3 lemons (or 3 oranges)
Vodka to cover (or rum)
1 small mason jar and lid

1. Wash your lemons and oranges.

2. Get a very sharp little knife ready.

3. Have nice clean jars to put them into. Needs a nice screw on lid.

4. Peel, extremely thinly, 3 or 4 lemons (or 3 oranges). Place the peels into a mason jar as you are peeling them.

5. When you have all your peels in your jar, fill the jar with Vodka (or rum).

6. Secure the lid and give it a couple of shakes. This is important, you want to see if anything floats. Whatever floats completely to the top, you remove that piece of peel. It means you have left too much of the white part of the lemon or orange attached.

***I peel mine in short strips. Long strips tend to float to the top when maybe they don't have too much white left on them. So if you have along strip that is floating, tear the strip into smaller pieces. Give the jar another shake. This will either work completely and nothing now floats, or if a part of that strip did have had too much white left on it, that part only will float to the top so you can remove it.

7. You let your jars sit for 2 weeks, shaking them once or twice each day. At the end of 2 weeks, you remove all the peels from the jar and replace them with a fresh batch of peels. You let this sit another 2 weeks, shaking once or twice each day and at the end of this second two weeks, the extract is ready to use. This keeps indefinitely. Just store it as you do your other extracts.

***Don't try to use the zest, I never do. Since you have to remove it all and replace it with fresh, removing all that zest wouldn't be fun, you could strain it, but in order to get all the zest out of there, you would have to use a cheese cloth. Then you will also be letting some of the extracted essence to be absorb by the cloth. Also there are lots of recipes that I use this in and I wouldn't want any flecks of lemon or orange to be there. The third reason is that as the extract is used, you can add more Vodka and remove the lemon strips and place more fresh strips of lemon peel in there. The whole slices of peel are just the best way to go with this.

In my picture, the orange extract is on the left and the lemon is on the right. The lemon looks like it has too much white left on the peel, but it really does't. If it did, that piece of peel would be floating on the top and I would have removed it.

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This makes a great addtition to gifts through out the year. Just tuck a small bottle of it in with that gift. It is always appreciated. You can pour it into a tiny little bottle and add a fresh thin slice of lemon peel. Looks so pretty!

I have seen so many recipes that use water and the Vodka. I don't add water when I make vanilla extract, so I sure don't to add it to my lemon or orange extracts either. I like my recipe better.

Sweet and Spicy No Cook Pickles

1 (46-ounce) jar hamburger dill chips

1/2 cup sugar

2 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons hot sauce

Drain liquid from jar; remove pickles from jar. Rinse pickles with water, and drain.

Layer half each of pickles, sugar, garlic, and hot sauce in jar. Press down gently. Repeat layers. Twist on lid to seal; invert jar, and shake 2 to 3 times to combine ingredients. Chill.

Store Pickles in refrigerator up to four weeks.

Watermelon Rind Sweet Pickles Cut green and pink from rind of a firm, medium-size melon, making about four quarts after cut in blocks or squares. Boil in clear water until it looks transparent. Pour in colander and drip over night. Second Part: 1 qt. good vinegar 4 lbs. sugar 1/4 pound broken stick cinnamon 1 Tbsp. whole cloves Bring vinegar and sugar to boil, skim well, tie spices in cheese cloth, add and boil for 10 minutes. Add cut rind and boil for about twenty minutes. Do not overboil, or the fruit will be mushy. Put contents in stone jar, or bowl and let stand one week. Pack fruit in glass jars (cold). Bring syrup to boiling point, pour over rind, brimming full, and seal. A little less sguar maybe used if more acid pickle is wanted. The rind may be cut in cubes or squares. It will require about four quarts of rind for this vinegar. There must always be sufficient vinegar to cover the pickles well. These pickles will keep without sealing but is is always safe to put into medium jars and seal.

Grandmother's Watermelon Rind Pickle 4 lbs watermelon rind 1 gal. cold water 3 Tbsp. pickling lime 2 qts. ginegar 2 Tbsp. whole allspice 1 Tbsp. whole cloves 2 long sticks cinnamon 2 pieces ginger root 1 lemon peel 2 tsp. salt 3 lbs sugar 1 qt. boiling water Select firm, thick, melon rind; remove all pink meat and green skin; weigh; cut into cubes or strips. Dissolve lime in gallon cold water; add rind and let stand several hours; rinse rind and cover with fresh water; let stand 2 or 3 hours. Change water and cook until tender. Let stand over night in cooking water. Combine all other ingredients and bring to a boil; add the drained rind and boil gently until clear. Remove spices, pack rind into sterilized jars and seal immediately.

Iced Green Tomato Pickles Soak for 24 hours seven pounds sliced green tomatoes in two gallons of water in which three cupfuls of lime have been dissolved. Drain and soak in fresh water for several hours, changing water every hour. Drain, place in large pot five pounds of sugar, three pints of vinegar and one teaspoon each cloves, ginger, allspice, celery seed, mace and cinnamon. Bring this syrup to boiling, pour over tomatoes and elt stand overnight. In the morning boil for an hour and seal in glass jars. One cupful of raisins may be added ten minutess before canning if desired. The lime makes the tomatoes crisp. This is really a fabulous pickle!