On Friday and over the weekend, I met with my fiance's mum and she showed me how to make green tomato pickles. I ordered 2 boxes of tomatoes from the green grocer in Cooma, along with some other special ingredients. We spent the weekend chopping, slicing, cooking, adding a bit of this and a bit of that, taste testing and bottling.
Now pickles in the Rankin household are like gold. Richard comes from a family of 9 and so there's lots of kids, grandkids and great grandkids who fight over them. They are just so yummy - nothing like a special recipe to zing up a good piece of meat. I've tasted other people's pickles and they are nowhere close to being as nice as Ethel's pickles. I feel so privileged to know now how to make them.
We managed to make three boxes full of pickles. Most of the jars went into Ethel's cupboards so that she's got pickles when the hoardes visit and took a box full home. This should last us til next year hopefully.
I'd been joking with Richard (who eats pickles like they're going out of fashion) that he'd need to pay me $5.50 for every bottle eaten. Well, I put the pickles in the garage for safekeeping and yesterday I was going to take a photo of them to put on the blog. I went into the garage and there weren't any pickles to be found! When I asked Richard what he'd done with them, he told me he'd hidden them and that I'd have to give him a dollar for every jar. Ha! He didn't realise that I was still $4.50 ahead!
I wonder whether you can buy a machine that chops onions and tomatoes? Does anybody know? It'd make the process so much easier and quicker.
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Oph, yummm! I love home made pickles. My grandmother made the best pickles i've ever tasted. She had a few recipes for different vegtables. Green tomato pickles, cauliflower pickles (my personal fave), choko pickles; and also home made jams. Her grapefruit marmalade was to die for!
ReplyDeleteLucky you being allowed to learn beside a great pickles maker. I was always too busy working to make them with my Grandmother, so never learnt the secrets that are never written on the recipe.
oohh yummo green tomato pickles is the bestest..
ReplyDeleteI used to have a thingy that was round in shape and had 4 sharp blades in it-kinda hard to descibe,umm oh yeah like a coffee plunger..I would put the stuff on a chopping board then put the cutterer thiny over and push down -chop chop then onto the next pile..was a great gadget..me explanation probably sounds likea alien object LOL
cheers Vickie