Dilly Beans. Because Eventually We All Have To.

Update: This recipe won a 1st place Blue Ribbon at the 2013 Arizona State Fair in the Pickles, Relishes, and Spiced Fruits category.

I’d heard about Dilly Beans when I first got into canning. But having had canned green beans, I couldn’t imagine the joy in eating soft, soggy, pickle flavored beans. And since I was teaching myself to can simply by reading as much as I could, I didn’t have the opportunity to ask things like “How do they stay crunchy?”

But being over 2 years in and head over heels for canning, I decided to go back and give them another shot. Instagram had a lot to do with it, because the canners I follow speak so highly of them. Especially in the context of being very spicy and in a Bloody Mary.

So I made a smaller batch last month. 2 quarts and 3 pints. Just something different to try out. The nicest part was how easy they were to make. Of course the downfall of pickling is that you really need to wait at least two to three weeks to taste the product. So I waited and waited. Last night the wife and I were enjoying some beers after dinner when I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I cracked a jar and tried one.

Oh. My. God. Why haven’t I made these before? Crisp, crunchy, spicy, and packed with all the best parts if dill pickle flavor. I’m not even ashamed to admit that we consumed the pint jar in less than 20 minutes. Fine. We’re making more.

I found myself at my favorite produce store with green beans on sale. I ended up leaving with a bushel. Which, is just over 29 pounds of green beans.

Dilly Beans
Green Beans
Fresh Dill
Garlic
Dry Chilis, Chili Flake, or Cayenne pepper
Pepper Corns
Vinegar
Water
Pickling Salt

Lets talk about ratios. As you know, if you keep up with me, I don’t work in small quantities. When I can stuff I make cases at a time. Now I’m guessing you guys may not be up for making a bushel if green beans. So here’s your ratios. Every part of salt gets 10 parts water and 10 parts vinegar. For instance 2 1/2 cups water, 2 1/2 cups vinegar, 1/4 cup salt. Or, in my case, two batches of 10 cups each of vinegar and water and one cup salt.

When it comes to the seasoning I added the following to each quart jar:
One sprig dill, 2 garlic cloves, two dried chilies, 10-20 peppercorns. For the pints I added half as much. For this particular batch I went heavy on the chilis, adding up to six to each quart and substituting 1/4 t of Santa Fe Chili Powder to the pints. I expect those to by spicy. Very spicy.

But this is what’s great about recipes like this. Up the dill, reduce the garlic, omit the pepper your choice. Add more or less cayenne or pepper flake for a mild, medium, hot, or atomic bean. You can also use dill seed or dry dill if you choose. Though I love fresh dill for all my pickling. Mix the flavors up and enjoy the variety.

Clean and prep your green beans. I cut a 1/4 inch of both ends. Because I had 30 pounds the entire family cut 1/4 inch of each end.

I read a lot of recipes where people cut each bean the exact same length to perfectly fit the required headspace in a pint jar. And that’s pretty cool…for them. I might try that for my state fair entry next year. But I have 30lbs of beans to process. If you’re making pints be sure that none of your beans are too long. If you’re making quarts you needn’t worry.

I grab a handful of beans and try to get them all facing the same direction. Then I gentry drop them straight down into the jar.

Then I try to fit a 2nd handful next to the 1st. After that you grab beans one by one and try to jam them in there. I’ve read of people using chop sticks to move the beans in the jar around to fit more. Again, time vs payoff. I tried to fit as many beans in one jar as I could.

Heat your vinegar, water, and salt to a boil and stir to dissolve the salt. Add the pickling solution to each jar of beans leaving headspace. I like to use the very bottom of the threads as a guideline. Lid, ring, finger tight.

Process in a water bath canner for 5 minutes. Yes, 5 minutes. That’s not much time. That also means this is one time your jars must be sterilized prior to processing. I use a steamer basket insert to steam my jars on a separate burner prior to use. When you put the jars on the water to process, remember that time doesn’t start until the water starts to boil again. After 5 minutes remove and set on a towel, cutting board, etc.

And now the hard part. Let them sit in your pantry for at least 21 days before opening. Let the flavors mellow. It’s totally worth it.

Dilly Beans are amazing out of the jar. They also rock in a Bloody Mary. I’d serve them with burgers or steak. Or on an antipasto platter at a dinner party. They’ve got great crunch, a good bite, and fantastic acidic flavor. Of you haven’t tried making them yet you should give it a chance.

Happy canning!

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Beets The Heck Out Of Store Bought

My wife loves beets. It’s a fact. She loves them steamed, roasted, grilled, raw, and pickled. On salads, with vegetables, as a side. It doesn’t matter. The woman loves beets. And that’s how a lot of my canning adventures start. Trying to impress the woman that loves me unconditionally.

I found myself at an Asian grocer tonight trying to find the ingredients for pickled ginger. And while I was wandering through aisles of various dehydrated fish products, candy made from vegetables, and exotic sauces I found a big display of Beets; 69 Cents/Lb. Now I don’t know if that is a great price, but it definitely seemed like a fair price. I picked up about 8 pounds of beets, a bag of pearl onions, a gallon of pickling vinegar, and a white onion.

The only thing I’ve done previously is dice and roast beets with other root vegetables. So I was not sure just how easy this task was going to be. Everything turned out better than expected.

Pickled Beets
8lbs Beets
1 Bag Pearl Onions
1/2 White Onion
2 Cinnamon Sticks
12 Cloves
12 Allspice Berries
4 Cups Vinegar
2 Cups Water
2 Cups Sugar
1 1/2 t Salt

If your beets come with the greens attached just trim them above the bulb. The idea is to trim them, but not to cut in to the beet.

Cover the beets in water and bring to a boil.

Boil the beets for approximately 45 minutes. Mine were the size of baseballs, and 45 minutes was perfect.

While the beets are boiling heat a medium pan of water to boil. Then drop in your pearl onions and boil for 3 minutes. Place the onions in an ice bath to cool.

Remove the onions one at a time and cut off the root end. Then squeeze the flower end and the onion pops right out. If part of the center of the onion pops out just push it back in.

Repeat until all your onions are liberated.

When your beets are cooked drain them and place them in an ice bath. Be careful when removing them. The skin of the beets sloughs off very easily now and it’s a bit like trying to grab a wet bar of soap. The next step involves a slippery beet and a sharp knife so be careful. Cut off the root end and the leaf end.

Then remove the skin. This is seriously so easy. Way easier than peaches. And even easier than tomatoes. I just passed the beet back and forth in my hands working it in circles. Almost like a pitcher does with a baseball.

To make it even easier I did it under running water. This washed the peels away and also prevented my hands from looking like I spent the day with Ed Gein. Now tomato skins come off easily. But I’m always afraid of damaging the tomato. The beets however are hard and solid which made this part so easy.

Cut your beet however you like. I’ve seen slices, cubes, chunks, crinkle cut caterpillar looking pieces. Whatever. Just try to keep the pieces uniform in size. I decided to cut the beet in half and then slice the halves in to 1/4 inch slices.

I rinsed my hands repeatedly through this process and avoided looking like a MASH surgeon. The extremely rich and dark color of the beet is amazing to me. I was trying to imagine what purpose it serves in nature. An attractant to pollinators? A pesticide? I have no idea. If you know, please share. I just know I love the color.

Mix your vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a large pot over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Place your clove, allspice, and cinnamon in cheesecloth and add it to the pot. Then increase heat to a boil. Slice your half onion in to strips. Add the white onion and pearl onions to the beets and add them to the pickling liquid.

Allow it all to return to a boil and them simmer for 5 minutes. You know the part about clean hot jars, funnels, labels , rings, and lids by now, right? Fill your jars with the beets, packing it down, and adding pickling liquid, if needed, to the 1/2″ headspace. Use your little canning tool to remove air bubbles.

Wipe the rims, place the lids, and finger tighten the bands. Process in a water bath canner for 30 minutes (pints or quarts). If I hadn’t mentioned it before, adding a splash if vinegar to your water bath eliminates the white hard water stains on your jars. 30 minutes later, you’ve got the beets, you’ve got the beets. Yeah! You’ve got the beets!

I haven’t tried these yet. I’m a firm believer that pickled need to sit for a while to become better. I’ll give the 1st jar at least a month before opening. But I’ll report back.

Happy Canning.

I wanted to put a joke about a fun guy in the title.

Once again I was lured in by the siren song of cheap prices. While picking up some strawberries for strawberry black pepper jam (recipe to follow in another post) I found mushrooms for $.10 a package. The 8 ounce packages that I think are usually around $1.99 each were on clearance for $.10 apiece. I looked the packages over, and while they definitely had some brown spots on them I did not see any mold or anything that looked so horrific that they were unusable. Unable to contain my excitement I quickly grabbed two flats and stacked 30 packages on them.

Arriving at home the first thing I did was to fill my sink with water and a little bit of ice to cool it down. I cut the packages open and dropped the mushrooms into the sink. Then I used my hands to bump them up and down in the water. That got most of the dirt off of them. I used the sprayer function on my faucet nozzle to rinse them off.

Then I took the mushrooms out one at a time. I cut off the bottom quarter inch of the stem as well as any brown spots that did not look good. All in all I think I only threw out 15 mushrooms. Most of them were good to go. Some of them had soft slimy spots that I sliced off. It turns out that 15 pounds of mushrooms will fill two 16 quart stock pots.

At this point my wife made the mistake of walking into the kitchen. I quickly put her to task on this next part. We took each mushroom and sliced it. The smaller mushrooms with only 3 to 4 slices each. The larger would be 6 or more. I tried not to make the slices too thin knowing very well that they would cook down quite a bit.

The mushrooms need to cook in water. I filled the pot with mushrooms and then added water. The problem is the mushrooms float and it was hard to keep them below the surface. I heated the water to boil, then reduce the heat and cook them for five minutes. After five minutes the color had darkened and they had turned slightly translucent.

I filled the jars with the mushrooms. This is the part that blew my mind. Such great volume of sliced mushrooms reduced down and down and down in size. By the time I was done I only filled nine pint jars. Is next part was a little tricky if you have sensitive fingers. I swear mine don’t feel heat anymore. I drained the liquid that they had been cooking in out of the jars. Then I added fresh clean boiled water up to the 1 inch headspace. I placed a ring and lid on each and was prepared to process them.

This is when the closest thing to catastrophe struck my kitchen. The weighted regulator for my pressure cooker was missing. I searched high and low in every spot that I would put it, everyplace my wife would put it, and any place I thought my kids might have hidden it. But it was to no avail. About 30 minutes later I conceded that I would not be processing the mushrooms tonight. I placed the jars in the fridge so that they wouldn’t be a complete waste and went to bed. The next day I ran to a hardware store bright and early and bought a new regulator.

Reprocessing food is not the end of the world it’s just labor-intensive. First off all the lids on the jars were trash now as the sealing compound had already softened on the hot jars yesterday. The contents of the jars was emptied back into a pot and slowly brought up to boil. I let it simmer for a couple minutes to make sure that everything was heated through. And then I refilled clean jars. If you ever processed something and the lids don’t seal right, this is the correct method for reprocessing the food. Same thing happens if you have an emergency come up and you can’t get things into a processor before you have to walk away from them. Throw them in the refrigerator to store them safely and then repeat them the next opportunity that you get.

The jars replaced in a pressure canner and heated at 11 pounds for 45 minutes. If you aren’t familiar with the process, you put 2 to 4 inches of water in the canner, put the jars inside, and put the lid on. Turn the heat on with the weighted regulator off. When steam starts purging through the regulator vent set the timer for 10 minutes. That little event should look like an old-fashioned locomotive pouring steam out. This ensures that all the cold air is purged out of the pressure cooker and the entire content is filled with water and steam. After 10 minutes put your weighted regulator on and watch the pressure rise. When it gets to the desired pounds reduce your heat to find that magic spot that keeps it at the number that you need. For me an exact medium keeps it at 11 pounds. That is the time that you start your processing timer. At sea level for mushrooms in pints it was 45 minutes. After 45 minutes turn the heat off on the burner and do nothing else. Moving the canner could cause the temperature to drop to rapidly and a rapid drop in temperature will cause your jars to purge. That will result in a pressure cooker full of glass jars and horrible mushroom soup.

After the pressure drops to zero remove the regulator to make sure no steam remains inside and slowly and carefully remove the lid. Allow the jars to remain in the processor just a little bit longer so they continue to cool slowly. If you have the time and don’t need the processor for anything else just leave them out overnight and return to them the next day when they are cool. Be aware that pressure process jars stay hot for an extremely long time. Jar lifters will still be needed to move them.

Allow the jars to sit undisturbed for 24 hours so the lids sealed correctly. You now have shelfstable mushrooms for the next two years. As I said my 15 pounds of mushrooms turned into less than 9 pint jars by the time everything was said and done. That’s approximately 2 pounds of mushrooms per jar. I ended up with one failure due to a lid not sealing correctly but those aren’t bad dogs for all of the processing that I do. If you have one jar that doesn’t seal and you do not want to reprocess it just put it in the refrigerator and use it within next week or two.

These cooked mushrooms would make a great addition to any marinara or other pasta sauce, as well as for use in casseroles or chicken dishes.

I decided to make the family chicken Marsala that night because that recipe is always much easier than I remember.

This was one of the more labor intensive and frustrating projects that I’ve done since getting into canning. I still insisted at $.20 a pound it was probably worth it long-term. However I would make sure to grant myself the time to get this done.