Refrigerator pickles

This is my Mom's recipe. She actually made it with Ryan and I and now it's a staple in our home. We even have friends that come over, request a jar, and return their empty jar for more. These pickles are super easy to make, but it does take up a bit of refrigerator space for a few days while they're soaking. It's totally worth it though.

Ingredients

8 cups sliced cucumbers
1 cups sliced onions (cut slices into quarters)
1/2 cup canning salt
2 cups sugar
1 cups vinegar
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
Water

Directions

Put sliced cucumbers, onions and canning salt in a large container and add enough water to cover the ingredients.  Let stand for at least 2 hours (overnight is ok), then drain off liquid. 

Add sugar, vinegar, celery seed and mustard seed to the container.

Place in refrigerator, stir once a day for 3 days.

They are now ready to serve. 

We usually make a double or triple batch. 

We put our pickles in Ball canning jars and store them in our rec-room refrigerator until we are ready to eat them.  Putting them in the jars also makes it easier when our friends try them and want to take some home with them!  They should keep for 6+ months in the fridge, but they probably wont last that long!

Zucchini Jelly

This recipe is one of my Grandma Wagner's. It's so easy to do that we had it made and in the jars within 30 minutes. The picture shown below is apricot flavored.

This is perfect for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kiddos school lunches, or your work lunch. Plus, it makes a great gift. Everything tastes better when it's homemade.

This jam has even got the "Ceil" of approval. Great Aunt Ceil that is. She's our 90 year old aunt that still does canning herself. We consider her our canning guru that has all the answers in this department. So if we get stuck and have questions, we ask her. When she gave this jelly two thumbs up we knew we did it right.

Ingredients

6 cups shredded zucchini
6 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 cup crushed pineapple
2 3-ounce packages jello (we used apricot for one batch and strawberry for the another, but you can use whatever flavors you want)

Directions

Boil zucchini until clear. Add sugar, juice and pineapple. Bring to a rapid boil. Add jello, dissolve and take from heat. Freeze.

Plant Markers

I don't know about you, but after we plant we always look at the garden and try and remember where we planted what. As stuff grows...or doesn't grow, we usually figure it out, but it's nice to know what we've got during the process. So, Ryan just got these fancy little markers called, Timeless and Elegant Copper Plant Markers, to eliminated the guessing game.

They turned out pretty neat and are fairly inexpensive. They should hold up through the summer storms, but we'll just have to wait and see to know for sure so we'll keep you posted.

It's kind of neat, because you can write anything on them that you're growing. All you need is a regular pen and write whatever it is that you're growing directly on the metal and just the pen indents the plate. We might even use these to label our fruit trees too.

If you like what you see here you can order your own at http://www.parkseed.com/ .