Who doesn’t like a crunchy dill pickle? I love them, problem is some jar labels can be deceiving! I hate when that happens…you open a jar of pickles and they turn out soggy and flimsy! Crispy and crunchy is what I want…so you know the saying when you want something done do it yourself! I took those words and ran with it to the kitchen and made my own pickles 🙂
They turned out great! I use local pickle cucumbers, they are so cute and crunchy. The amount for my recipe is enough for 6 one liter mason jars. This is my adaptation from Taste of Home Canning and Preserving Magazine.
The first time I made these I noticed that some of the garlic pieces turned blue, so I asked about it and the answer is in the comment section, thanks Carol, it’s normal so no worries!
What you will need:
- 5 and 1/2 to 6 lbs pickle cucumbers
- 8 cups white vinegar
- 8 cups water
- 1 cup salt
- 2-3/4 cups of sugar
- 1 large onion
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 1 bunch of dill
- 6 tbsp of pickling spices
- 6 bay leafs
- 6 clean 1 L mason jars and lids
Blue garlic is perfectly safe and it freaked me out the first time I saw it too!
This is a normal reaction between garlic's natural sulfur content reacting with the trace amounts of copper in normal water supplies, vinegar, table salt and in some kitchen utensils.
Not all garlic will react the same way – it depends on the garlic variety and the conditions in which it was grown. Blue, bluish-green and even purplish color changes are perfectly harmless and safe to consume (unless of course you also see other signs of spoiling having nothing to do with the color change).