The Very Easy and Never Ending Jar of Pickles

I used to think my father in law was a bit out there when he would use the old pickle juice to add onions and cucumbers to, pickling has to be more complicated than that was the rational I had. But after some experience in making refrigerator pickles I realized that reusing the liquid from your pickles over and over not only is an easy way to keep a never ending jar of pickles in your refrigerator but it is an excellent use of resources.

It has been impossible to keep pickles in our house for any length of time since both my husband and dd are capable of demolishing a jar of pickles in less than a day, but with these pickles I can keep them on hand for a fraction of the price of buying dill pickles.

I started out with a refrigerator pickle recipe that was in and of itself very easy to make. This recipe makes one jar of pickles and I doubled it to put it in a larger jar since my family goes crazy over pickles. I started the jar of pickles at the beginning of the growing season, and each time the jar was emptied or getting close to empty I simply filled it back up again, let it sit for a few days and my family had fresh pickles to eat again. Ok it is not traditionally fermented pickles, I know it is not the “right” way to do it, but it is a super easy way to keep my family in healthy snacks they love and a great way to use up extra pickles.

The Recipe

This recipe is about as simple as it gets, and the pickles it makes are great, I even like them and I am NOT a pickle fan. I use them in the potato and pasta salads as well letting my daughter (the pickle monster of the house) have free reign.

I used an old pickle jar to make these; it was approximately 2 quarts, so I doubled this recipe. You can use any size jar you want; this recipe is based on a one quart Mason jar so just adjust your amounts to suit the size of your jar.

When you finish the pickles (they do not last long in our house) simply add more cucumbers to the brine and let them sit for a couple of days. You can also add onions, sweet peppers and even hot peppers to the mix. The hot peppers will spice up your mix bit, so use caution in how many you choose to add.

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The Very Easy and Never Ending Jar of Pickles

Prep time

48 hours

Total time

48 hours

Makes one quart of pickles

Recipe type: Canning

Ingredients

6 Small Cucumbers ( you can use either pickling cucumbers or regular cucumbers for this recipe I have used both.)
3 Cloves of Garlic
8 pieces of dill
⅔ cup White Vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1½ Tablespoons Canning Salt
1 Tablespoon Pickling Spices

Instructions

Make sure the jar and lid you plan to use is clean and dry, you do not need to sterilize as you might with canning because this is a refrigerator recipe and there is no processes involved.
Cut your pickles as desired, you can slice them in rounds, make spears or cut long thin sandwich slices; this is simply a matter of preference. Cut Garlic in halves lengthwise.
Mix together the remaining ingredients except dill in another covered container; shake until the sugar and salt are completely mixed in with the vinegar mixture.
Pack the cucumber slices, garlic in dill in the jar you have chosen and then pour your vinegar mixture over the top. Let sit in the refrigerator for 48 hours before trying. These pickles will last for up to one month if kept refrigerated.

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How Much Canning Do You Need For a Full Year?

Canning and preserving can go a long ways to making sure that your family’s needs are taken care of over the long winter months. With the rapidly rising costs of food and the gas needed to transport it, it is becoming more and more of a necessity to do everything you can to make sure that you have plenty of food you have grown or have been able to get in season.

Start with a Plan

Get a Good Idea of What Your Family Will Eat

One of the biggest mistakes that new and seasoned gardeners and canners alike make is growing or canning food they are not even sure that their family will eat. Another mistake is to preserve far more of one time than you are likely to get your family to consume in a years’ time. To the best thing that you can do is to start with a plan.

What does you family really love from the garden
What did You use the Most of last winter
What are the items you are most quickly refilling from Your Pantry?
what sits on your Shelves and does not get eaten?

TIP – If you have an inventory list, take a close look at it and find the items that are most popular, many things on your list can be preserved if you are not doing it already. Aside from plant based foods, meats can also be canned, as well as complete meals.

Make a List of the Items You know Your Family Will Eat

Start by making a list of the items you know your family will eat, and make an approximate list of how many jars, or other units that your family will eat in a year. Keep in mind that you can dry, freeze and can just about anything providing you have the materials and the storage space for it.

HINT : Canning is just one way to keep your food, You can also dry, freeze and smoke foods.

Make a list of things you ran out of last year and how soon in the year you ran out, this will give you an basic idea of how much you should can this year.

Drop Anything from your list that is still sitting on the shelf, there is a reason why it is not getting eaten, If you just canned too much of it, keep in mind that many can goods can last longer than a year if properly stored, so You can easily finish up and then add it to your list next year.

Make a list based on what you find from the notes you have taken. Prioritize your list by what you know will be of the most use to your family and what you can grow yourself.

Use Your List to Plan Your Garden and Buying

Most of us do not grow enough to feed our family, but if we have a list of what we Want to can this year, we can watch for sales, search for bargains or jump on freebies when our neighbors have more than they can use. A well planned list will keep you in the know and help you to organize your canning year accordingly.

Figuring out How Much to Plant

Figuring out how to plan your garden to feed your whole family is not an exact science, It depends on a lot of factors such as:

How many People in your family
How good your growing Year is
How much of an item You will be using.
Your growing Conditions

The best thing to do is to figure out the approximate yield in pounds for your garden, then calculate how many pounds per quart jar. The links below will give you some starter numbers to work with, but don’t forget that these numbers are just approximates.

Yields From Fresh Vegetables and fruits – This link will tell you how many pounds you will need per quart jar of food, the list is short but you should be able to approximate other foods using this list.

Pounds Per Row – This PDF was written for Virginia but it will give you a basic idea of the yield in pounds per 10 ft. row for a wide range of crops while this yield is approximate depending on your location and growing conditions it serves as a good guide for planning how much to plant to get the desired harvest.

A Final note

Make sure to keep good gardening records, you can keep them in a notebook or on your computer, but make sure to note what type of harvest you got, the crop you planted, how much you planted and how many jars you got from your harvest. Also note what your family ate over the year, so you can keep track for next year and have a much more accurate idea of what to grow.