Pickled dilled beans (p. 949)

My name is Jessica and I'm a horribly inattentive blogger.

I am 23 recipes behind. I promise to catch up. And I'm going to work in the opposite direction I normally do--I'm going to write about the recipe I made the most recently and work backwards, so if you don't have a blog reader, make sure to check back and read backdated posts--I will have to write at least 10 posts in the next couple days. And some are about absolutely delicious foods that you don't want to miss.

I'm always conflicted when I write about canned items. Should I post when I make them or when I taste them? Any opinions? I made Pickled dilled beans (p. 949) from my farmer's market finds (Des Moines has one of the best farmer's markets in the country, hands down).

I like canning with my mom. First off, it makes me feel like a pioneer woman for some reason--probably because in every young adult pioneer book I've ever read, the heroine seems to can food for winter with her mom. Second, I'm less terrified of botulism when mom is helping me. Apparently, I am confident in mom's ability to limit my botulism exposure.

Mom was making her delicious pickles and I thought I could get in on the pickling action with my beans.

I boiled white vinegar, water, and canning salt:



I (or rather mom) sterilized my jar, packed it with green beans, dill, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes:



Make more brine than they recommend--my jars were smaller than recommended and my double recipe of brine did not fill two jars. It may be because my green beans weren't "plump" like recommended but I took what I could get!

I poured boiling brine into the jars, sterilized the lids, and popped them on.



I made three jars--it was interesting to see the color change as they cooked in the hot brine!

I have no idea what these taste like because they have to pickle! I will have to update this recipe when iI finally get to eat them. Mom wanted me to add alum to keep the pickles crisp, but I figured I needed to accurately see how crisp the TJOC recipe beans are before applying modifications.