Two weeks ago (wow, the days fly by) we embarked on an icicle pickle adventure. I say adventure because S. and I had never made a pickle recipe that required multiple draining and bringing, etc periods. We used the recipe for Sweet Icicle Pickles in the ball blue book. So, basically we had to find containers to house 8 pounds of sliced cucumbers (and associated liquid) over a week-long period)... We used some gallon jars...


First you brine them (water and salt) and let them sit for a week. Then, we rinsed 'em and covered them with boiling water and let them stand overnight again. Next, it was time for the pickling spices...so we boiled those, vinegar, and sugar, then let the whole mess sit for another 24 hours. Now's the fun part...Every day, for the next week we drained off the liquid, re-boiled it, and put it back over the cucumbers.... (ag). So finally, we were ready to can them! One more boil and then into the jars (we actually came up a tiny bit short on brine and had to whip up some sugar-vinegar-pickling spices at the last minute....). And voila.... here's hopin' they taste good! (and yes, they're slices...not typical "icicle" style..but some of our cukes--ok most--were waay too big for spears.)