I have a friend named Ann Marie.
She is an Army wife and a homeschooling mom of three who loves all things yarn, kitchen skills, soap making, gardening, RV traveling and historical re-enactment just to name a few. She started opening her home once a month about a year ago to give classes on all the things she loves. She is a social butterfly who loves hospitality.
She is quickly becoming one of my favorite people here in El Paso. You can find out more about her and things that she sells on her website/blog called Farming Grace, She is also on Facebook.
She hosted a class on pickling vegetables recently and I thought I would share some highlights.
We started our time learning about the different supplies needed for the canning process.
Ann Marie believes in the hands on method so we all got involved with chopping, mixing brines, cooking veg and the whole canning process from loading the sanitized jars to boiling, cooling and labeling them.
We used the Kosher pickling mix and the bread and butter mix and tested them on carrots, cucumbers, and jalapenos.
Here is the Bread and Butter Brine.
There were also lots of snacks to enjoy as we worked… all baked goodies were homemade by Ann Marie
Another lady brought fresh fruit and made a yummy fruit dip.
We also got to sample some pickled peppers and watermelon rind.
This is a sampling of some carrots and cucumbers cooking in the pickling liquid.
Lovely Ann Marie talking us through several things.
Then it was our turn to step in and do the work.
Lovely carrots!
This was the boiling/sealing process that happened after the jars were filled.
This process took about 20 minutes and then they were removed and cooled.
Just a few more shots of the process…
When we were all done we each got to take four jars each home with us.
They will be ready to enjoy in about a week.
I plan to do more of this very soon!
Thanks so much to Ann Marie for opening her home and having a generous and hospitable spirit!
Next week we make soap!
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