Christmas in July

This week it was a little warm, so we thought we would bring a little Christmas to July. This is the first week we've gone with no rain at all in quite some time, then it got hot. Our garden and pumpkin patch are holding their own so far. Joys of gardening, it's a shame more people don't know the feeling.

We start the pictures this week with Christmas pickles. The cucumbers have been coming in every day so we are trying to get creative with how we use them. Cupcake found this recipe and we gave it a go. We are excited about this one.

Straight from the garden to the kitchen

Sliced and seeded

Simmer in sauce

Then we add the "magic"

Time to make the syrup

Then they soak for one day in the jars

These pickles took all weekend to make. They are a little more labor intensive than the ones we usually make, but we're not afraid to try new things. We started by quartering the cucumbers length wise, then use a spoon to cut the seeds out of the middle. Once the cucumbers are seeded, we simmered them in a brine of water and alum. While the cucumbers were simmering, we made the syrup with water, sugar and red hots candy. We packed the cucumbers in jars and poured the syrup over the cucumbers and let them sit for twenty four hours. After a day, we sealed them up and hot bath canned the pickles along with a few extras.

Sliced pears

Leftover syrup put to good use

We had about one quart of syrup left over from the pickles, and it tasted so good we hated to waste it. Cupcake hit on the idea of canning pears in the syrup for an extra winter treat. We picked up about a half dozen pears and sliced them. We hot packed them in the syrup then water bath canned them along with the pickles. Now all we have to do is wait until Christmas to eat them.
Like we said, the cucumbers have been coming in every day, this is our best year for cucumbers since we started a garden.

This is only half, the yellow cucumbers have not started yet

We have a volunteer gourd vine that came up at the wood pile, we are letting it run because gourds are fun to decorate with in the fall.

And Cupcake's Tennessee sweet potato vines have started producing fruit.

We never get tired of having fresh veggies on hand every day. It counter balances the heat.

One great thing about fresh veggies is meal time. We enjoy BLT biscuits every morning during the summer.

And we use the veggies in dinner dishes as well. Cupcake made a macaroni salad Saturday night that was the best one she's ever made. She really knocked this one out of the park.

And since Dude's Drive In was closed this week, we smoked a whole pig leg for dinner.

And our last picture this week is Nephew Henry. He got to spend the night with Pops Friday night, so that means Saturday morning pancakes. Little Henry put a hurt on some chow.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K