Pickles.... yay!!

I didn't slack yesterday, promise. I, with Michelle's big time help, made and canned dill pickles out of cucumbers from my garden! So cool. They had to spend the night at her house to cool off, and I wasn't able to get a picture. I will post it as soon as I get them home.

Here's what we did.
I washed and cut about 4 pounds of cucumbers (both pickling and a couple regular ones) into rounds.
Then we put dill, red pepper flakes, peppercorns and garlic in the clean jars (I used quart sized). We filled them with cucs and poured the hot liquid over it.

The "hot liquid" was 3 batches of this recipe:
2 3/4 c distilled white vinegar
3 c water
1/4 c pickling salt
It was heated to boiling and stirred to let the salt dissolve.

After they were stuffed, filled and "burped" (which apparently is when you tap the bottom of the jar to get all the air bubbles out) we put on clean hot lots and rings and put them in the water bath canner. They boiled in there for 15 minutes. They had to sit overnight on the counter and they have to be stored in a cool dry place for a month before we can crack open a jar and give 'em a taste.

Now please understand.... I am not an expert on canning and there are all kinds of weird things about how things work that I have no idea about. I bought a book, The joy of pickling by Linda Ziedrich,  and mashed up a couple of her recipes. My advice if you haven't canned before is find someone who has and let them teach you.
Ok, I promise to post pics of my pretty pickles soon!