Pickled Cucumbers & Pickled Onions

The house still smells of pickles and onions. If hubby doesn't have a training day on Wednesday he will be home for his 3 week holiday tomorrow. He'll smell them when he drives in the driveway for sure. Hubby loves my pickles and usually puts in a request when stocks are low. So this will be a nice surprise for him. I'm making all his favorites so far...come to think of it...All my preserves are his favorites.
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Hint: If you plan to make both recipes at the same time, it makes for one lot of preparation. One mess to clean up too which I like. Weigh out onions for both recipes, keeping them in separate bowls. Prepare 1 double batch of the spiced vinegar mixture and bottle the cucumber mix first. After bottling the cucumber mix, reheat the spiced vinegar.Add the plain onions and repeat the bottling process. Too easy!

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Bread & Butter Pickled Cucumbers

12 medium burp-less cucumbers  

1 ½ lb onions 

6 tablespoons salt                                

1 ½ lbs sugar

3 tablespoons mustard seeds

½ teaspoon turmeric powder                                 

2 teaspoons celery seeds

1 ¼ pints white vinegar                   

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

I'm trying out a new seedless variety  

In a suitable large vessel put thinly sliced cucumber and onion.  Sprinkle with salt and let stand for 4 hours or overnight. I always leave them overnight.  

Pour into colander and rinse and drain well. Rinse and drain again.

Boil together vinegar, spices and sugar. Then add rinsed cucumber and onion and simmer for 2 minutes.  (avoid actual boiling) 

Bread & Butter Pickled Cucumbers

 Pack in sterilized jars, clean rims and any drips and seal immediately.  If any don't seal; pop them in a moderate oven for 15 minutes, then remove from oven and allow to cool. This process should seal all jars. If not, discard the lid once you have finished eating that jar. Enjoy in 3 to 4 days. 

You can order new lids for recycled jars from Green Living Australia by clicking here.(I don't get any credit) They also have a great FAQ page on replacing your lids too, It has loads of information on there.

All these jars sealed, except for three. Those lids will be ordered.

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Pickled Onions - For sandwiches (Yep! Pre-sliced pickled onions...Brilliant idea of mine I think!)

4KG ONIONS sliced thin

6 tablespoons salt                                

1 ½ lbs sugar

3 tablespoons mustard seeds I added extra mustard seeds, 

as most went in the Pickled cucumbers first.

 ½ teaspoon turmeric powder                                

2 teaspoons celery seeds

1 ¼ pints white vinegar I like to use 50/50 of white vinegar and malt vinegar                   

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Use the same method as the above "Bread & Butter Pickled Cucumber recipe"

Salted overnight

Rinsed twice and added to Spiced Vinegar then bottled.

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Having Hubby home will give us a chance to spend some quality time together. We have lots of plans to go fishing, especially since I've fitted out the boat with a new motor, new forward controls, mounted burly bucket, speedometer,  mounted knife holder, mounted tackle draws, mounted live-well tank and a new drive-on trailer. That's quite a list; but it's been quite a year for hubby too, he's worked so hard this year, he deserves to be spoiled. It was a huge surprise for him to come home from Mudgee (on his birthday) to find it all decked out....He had no idea

We are all looking forward to having him home. Our family of four will be together now for Christmas....Time with family is precious, especially this time of year, especially THIS year.