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Home Canning: Bread & Butter Pickles Having an abundance of small #cucumbers, and time on my hands, this afternoon I continued to expand on my Home Canning repertoire. Today's canning adventure would be to create my favorite #Pickle - the sweet, yet tart, Bread & Butter Pickle. Using a spice formula that incorporated #Stevia instead of high-carb sugar, my Bread & Butter Pickles would be sweet enough, low-carb (practically no-carb) since the total of ingredients is lead by the cucumbers at less than 4 carbs per cup of sliced cucs and dwindles from there! Basic spice mix is mustard seed, celery seed, dill seed, whole cloves, and #Turmeric powder, whisked into boiling white (distilled) vinegar. First you want to wash and slice your cucs (I used 4 lbs) and 1 medium white onion. Place sliced cucs and onion in really large mixing bowl, dutch oven, or stock pot, sprinkle with canning (or Kosher) salt, toss cucs in the salt and then add enough cold water to cover and let stand for a couple hours in the brine. This is when you prep your spiced vinegar and mason jars - wash, rinse, and then ready your waterbath pot - I used a 20qt (5gal) stock pot - place a steamer rack in bottom of your pot and fill with enough water that your later filled jars will be completely submerged by a couples inches of boiling water. Bring canning pot to slow boil and keep it simmering. Bring spiced vinegar to almost boiling in a pot large enough to comfortably accommodate all your sliced cucs, onion, and the spiced vinegar. As you near 2 hours of brining place jars in canning pot raising heat to a steady boil. In sauce pan place lids & rings in enough water to cover and bring to boil and then simmer. Drain cucs, rinse and drain again, then add cucs to spiced vinegar pot, bring to boil, then shut off heat. Pull several jars from boiling pot and setup a line to fill and cap. I used a slotted spoon and canning funnel (it has a big mouth that just fits into mason jar) to fill my pint jars with spiced cuc slices. Leave a ½ inch gap below lip of jar. After filling jars with cucs pour in just enough spiced vinegar (with some of spice seeds) into jars to cover cucs. Place lids on jars, and then add..
