Pickles and Hot Sauce

I grew some cucumbers and they were yummy, but I don't prefer plain ol' cukes. I like 'em pickled. Refer to page 212 in Back To Basics for info and recipe. (don't have this book yet? Well you're crazy because it's awesome!) Ok, so it may be in the mail... I will tell ya what I did.

Pickled Cukes~ I sliced my cukes into spears and soaked them in Brine (1/2 cup salt : 1/2 gal water) it is best to use salt with nothing else in it or else the cukes will turn color or the water will cloud. I used regular table salt because that is what I had, so the water is a bit murky but that is just because of the additives...
I let them sit on the counter for about 8 hours and drained them. Meanwhile I brought vinegar, salt, sugar and water to boil. I put the cukes in a mason jar along with jalapenos I grew and some garlic. Usually you want to add some fresh Dill here, but the dill got over run with weeds and I haven't started anymore.
After you're smelly vinegar mixture is done you pour it into the jars with your cukes & spices. Now put on your lid and boil it in water for 20 minutes. This cans it! Take out your jars with some tongs and let cool. Enjoy!

Pineapple Jalapeno Hot Sauce & Spicy Pickled Cucumbers

Pineapple Jalapeno Hot Sauce~ I have 4 jalapeno bushes in 5 gal buckets (now I know you only need 2-3 gal per bush) plus some young plants that started from seed and take forever. Its wetter here than their natural habitat so I've had to pick some peppers early. I made hot sauce with these cause they are so dang hot! !
We had around 10 or 15 peppers, put in a blender, added vinegar, sea salt and pineapple juice. It turned out wonderful! Just add a little bit of everything at a time and taste~ you can always add more but can't take it out! :) Also if you aren't doing sweet, use water & onions & garlic for savory-ness.

Holla!!!! Penos

In my large cucumber pot I had dill & carrots growing. In the first photo you can see a tiny dill baby sprouting up. The other shoots I thought were carrots, but they were weeds! I let them take over the dill and I pulled one up randomly to see how it was and there was no carrot on the end! So we pulled the rest of the weeds up... Gotta watch those weeds, they are sneaky.