Mr. FixIt had Physical Therapy yesterday so I decided it was the perfect day to put up some Bread & Butter Zucchini Pickles. As soon as the kitchen was picked up from the mess I made baking the Pepperoni Rolls, I took a box out to the garden and picked the squash I’ve been letting grow. They were some monsters! All told, I ended up with seventeen pounds of squash.
When I used to make this about three lives ago, I grew both green and yellow zucchini. When I told Mr. FixIt I wanted to grow them for pickles, he bought the crookneck variety. I thought maybe they would work. Unfortunately, when I started cutting them up, I realized the yellow crookneck squash gets very hard…like gourds…when you let them grow big. They just didn’t work for this…and they are too woody to eat. Lesson learned. My cousin is raising a couple of pigs so none of this stuff will go to waste.
You can tell a great cookbook when it’s got splashes and spills on it and the very best things you’ve tried are on dog-eared pages. I’ve made so many things from this cookbook. I’ve won many ribbons at fairs and baking competitions. When I was preparing to sell my home and downsize, this was one thing I would not part with.
Once I got all the veggies cut up, I layered them with pickling salt and set them to rest for an hour or two. This draws out the excess water…something especially needed when substituting squash for the cucumbers the recipe calls for. I stumbled on this whole Zucchini Pickle thing quite by accident.
I was growing zucchini and tomatoes in the garden I put in at a rental house when Hubby #2 was in Medical School. Anyone who grows zucchini knows…after the first few servings, it’s easy to let a few get away from you and grow way too big to eat. We were poor as church mice and I was raised by a frugal grandma. You never wasted food! I rummaged through my cookbooks and found this one. It has recipes from all over the country that have won ribbons at State Fairs. I saw the recipe for Bread and Butter Pickles and I thought…what the heck? It’s worth a try!
Eureka! I could sit with a fork and eat a whole jar of these. I had some of those little tri-colored sweet peppers about the size of jalapeños. They are colorful with their red, orange, and yellow. I cut them in rings. And, I cut the last two Vidalia into chunks. The turmeric ends up coloring the pickled squash yellow so they are not only good to eat, but they make a beautiful gift.
Mr. FixIt came in with the mail…and there was my copy of Girl Camper Magazine. It was everything I could do to not open it up right then and there and sit down with a cup of tea. Then, while the cut veggies were resting in the salt, Mr. FixIt and I went for a lovely swim. The water was 91℉…so it wasn’t necessarily refreshing, but it was wet and it’s always fun to float around out there and chat as the sun goes down. The deer flies aren’t biting just yet, and it’s still too early for the big horse flies. We haven’t had a big mosquito problem this year because it’s been so dry.
I still have two or three big zucchini left so I can make more pickles today. I have ten pints done, so far. The tomatoes will be coming on hard and heavy soon. I need to find someone who sells green beans, too.
Farm life. This is what I’ve waited my whole life for.
❤️
“The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.”
Proverbs 21:20 NIV