Still Pickled ... Eggs and Bologna

Pickling isn't really a long-term storage strategy, it is a great way to keep some foods that tend to spoil quickly, especially without refrigeration, a little longer. For example, if you kept chickens and had an excess of eggs, what would you do with them so that the excess wouldn't go to waste? Boil them and they last a little longer with refrigeration, but without refrigeration they would still spoil. The answer is pickle them.

Another pickled favorite in my home state of Michigan is bologna. You can buy commercial brands of pickled ring bologna. But the ingredient list always seems to include chicken and turkey in the bologna and corn syrup for a sweetener. I've also noticed that almost all of the brands have cayane peppers and they are just too spicy for me.

I found a brand of ring bologna that was pork and beef, my favorite mix so I decided to make some old-fashioned pickled ring bologna. I have to admit, I never tried pickled eggs before, so this is a new experience for me.

When I was a kid, almost every little village or town grocery store had a couple of gallon jars on the counter with dill pickles, pickled rign bologna and even pickled eggs. I wanted to do them in gallons but that size was impracticle in my refrigerator so I did them in half-gallons.

The pickled eggs only need to set for two days and I did mine with beets and onions. The combination is excellent and I think I'm in love with pickled eggs. I'll be keeping this in my fridge from now on. The pickled ring bologna won't be ready for two weeks, but my mouth waters just thinking about it.

Sweet Pickled Eggs and Beets Recipe
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INGREDIENTS

• beets
• 1 dozen eggs
• 2 cups beet juice
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1 medium onion (cut into rings)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Boil eggs, cool and shell.
2. Place in bowl with drained beets and onions.
3. Bring the 2 cups of beet juice to a boil.
4. Reduce heat and add vinegar and brown sugar.
5. Allow to simmer until brown sugar has dissolved.
6. Pour over eggs, beets, and onions
7. Cover and let stand in refrigerator for at least 2 days.

NOTES

• Eggs should be hard boiled, not medium or soft.
• You can start with fresh or canned beets. I cheated and used chunks of beets that I canned last summer and didn't eat during the winter; you could just as easily buy canned at the store. Reserve the beet juice for the recipe. If you don't have 2 cups of juice, just add some water.
• I've discovered an easy way to prepare fresh beets. Clean the dirt off, cut the top leaving about 1/2" of stem, cut off the tap root, leaving about 1/2". Steam the beets until cooked. The stem and the skin will peel off after cooked; you may want to trim off the tap root. Slice or cut the beet into chunks. Reserve the beet juice that is in the tray under the steamer.
• I used a half-gallon jar and it seems to be adequate for a dozen eggs if you don't add too many beets.

Pickled Ring Bologna Recipe
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INGREDIENTS

• 2 ring bologna
• 1 qt. vinegar
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 tsp. salt
• 4 tsp. pickling spice

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix vinegar, sugar, salt, and pickling spice in a jar.
2. Cut bologna in chunks and add to the vinegar mixture.
3. Seal jar and let stand for 3 days before eating.
4. Does not need to be refrigerated.

ALTERNATE RECIPE/INSTRUCTIONS

• Add 1 pt. water and 1 pt. vinegar for a milder flavor.
• Add an extra tsp. of sugar if you like it a little sweet.
• Use 2 tsp. pickling spice, 1/2 tsp celery seed, 1/2 tsp mustard seed and 2-3 bay leaves.
• Add one clove of garlic, sliced.
• If you use water and vinegar, be sure and refrigerate and let stand for two weeks.
• Leave the bologna in ring but be sure to poke the bologna all over with a fork to make sure that the meat pickles.

Where's the Beef? Dill
By Zarathustra

When I was young, mom made our dill pickles at home. The process involved a lot of work and she canned a lot of dill pickles. She grew her own pickles and she grew her own dill. She treasured her old fashioned ceramic crock pot that she used for fermenting pickles. Mom's best dill pickle years where a time when we lived on a small farm not far from Chippewa Lake, Michigan. After we moved, the flavor changed a bit and she always thought it might be the minerals in the water.

The dill pickles we buy in the store today seem to be missing something and I think I know what it is. Pick up any jar and inspect it carefully. What's missing is the dill. I have never seen a head of dill or dill weed packed in with the pickles and I haven't found a brand yet that list dill as an ingredient.

Most brands list spices as an ingredient, and perhaps one of the spices is dill, but mom's dill pickles had big heads of dill in them. This year I made my own dill pickles. I got the pickles from a farmer's market. Dill pickles need to be picked while they are still small, 3" - 4" long is best but they can be a little longer, just so they aren't too seedy inside. Clean the pickles and remove the blossoms, if any; a short stem, under 1/4", is ok to leave on but can be removed.

I grew my own dill! It's the only way I was going to get dill heads and dill weed for my pickles. My backyard garden is tiny or I would have grown the pickles too. We started the dill inside from seed. Young dill is delicate and it only takes a day of neglect to dry them out, leaving you with a tray of dead weeds instead of young herbs. Experience is harsh!

I placed the young dill plants with the snap peas. My experience is that dill needs companion plants for support and I thought that the snap peas might just bind the dill to the netting. I was right! They did quite well together.

I picked the seed heads and the weed from plants with seeds that were still a bit green or just beginning to change to brown. Some heads were already mature with dry seed on them so I picked them and put the seeds in a bag. If your into permaculture, dill does a great job of self seeding for the next year's crop. I seldom use dill seed as an herb, so I'm going to try to plant lots of starts indoors and my daughter is going to sell the young dill plants for a dollar each in the front yard. We are saving seeds from other plants that did well too: cilantro, basil, lettuce, spinach, and marigolds. We might even try to save some tomato seeds.

I didn't ferment my dill pickles in an old fashioned crock pot like mom did, I cheated and used one of those mixes, in fact I experimented and did two batches with two different brands of mix. The only thing I did different than the instructions was to pack in a clove of garlic, cut in half, a large or two small, heads of dill and a large sprig of dill weed.

I've done some more research and I don't think I really needed the seasoning packs and I might have overdone things. I'll report back in another month or two on how they came out.

Doing it our self is becoming more important to us. Not many years from now, it may be necessary to grow your own and those convenient seasoning packages might not be affordable even if they are still available. So, I've been looking for the perfect recipe for kosher dill pickles from scratch and I think I've found it.

Kosher Dill Pickle Recipe
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My water bath canner only holds seven quart jars, so that is my batch size. This recipe is for seven or eight quarts:

INGREDIENTS

• 7 or 8 pounds 3 to 4 inch long pickling cucumbers
• 4 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
• 12 cups water
• 2/3 cup pickling salt
• 14 or 16 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
• 7 or 8 sprigs fresh dill weed
• 7 or 8 heads fresh dill weed

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place the washed and trimmed pickles in the sink (or a tub) with cold water and lots of ice cubes. Soak in ice water for at least 2 hours but no more than 8 hours. Refresh ice as required.
   
2. Sterilize 7 or 8 one-quart, canning jars and lids in boiling water for at least 10 minutes.
3. In a large pot over medium-high heat, combine the vinegar, water, and pickling salt.
   
4. Bring the brine to a rapid boil.
5. In each jar, place 2 half-cloves of garlic, one head of dill, then enough cucumbers to fill the jar (about 1 pound). Then add 2 more garlic halves, and 1 sprig of dill.
   
6. Fill jars with hot brine leaving the top 1/2" unfilled.
7. Seal jars, making sure you have cleaned the jar's rims of any residue.
8. Process sealed one-quart jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. If you used pint jars, process for 10 minutes.

Store pickles for a minimum of 8 weeks before eating. Refrigerate after opening. Pickles will keep for up to 2 years if stored in a cool dry place.

NOTES

• It is very important to soak the pickles for at least two hours in ice-cold water. Starting with cold, well hydrated pickles is the key to getting a crunchy, crisp texture.
• I start with clean jars and begin sterilizing them just before I mix my brine solution. I put the jars in top-down, tipping them slightly to let water so they won't tip over. This can be a bit awkward when you remove them, so don't burn yourself. I like to add my ingredients to a "hot" jar. Some people sterilize their jars ahead of time and leave them top side down on a clean towel with another clean towel laid over them. That works too. Or, you can cheat and sterilize them in a dishwasher. Remember, that in a resource scarce future the dishwasher might not be there for you.
• You are going to need a funnel to fill the jars without spilling. Mine is metal, so I sanitize it with the jars and lids.
• I prefer wide mouth jars for all of my whole and sliced pickles, but regular jars are ok for chipped sandwich dill pickles.
• Vinegar can and does leach metals so it is important to mix or add brine to either glass or enameled containers. Enameled cooking pots are quite common; they are often black or dark blue pots with white spots all over them but can come in any color.
• Pickling salt is table salt that has been ground very fine and does not include iodine or anti-caking agents.
• The best way to peel garlic cloves is to branch them in boiling water (I use the water I plan on boiling my jars in) first. The skins come right off.
• The brine should be added while it is still boiling hot. This will help give your jar a better seal with a shorter processing time.
• Be sure and have the water in your canner boiling before you pack the jars and add the brine. If you start with cold, well hydrated pickles, hot jars, hot lids, boiling hot brine and boiling hot water in the canner, the lids will seal tight without overcooking the pickles. If you cook the pickles too long, they will get soft and limp.
• If the flavor of your pickles is too strong after 8 weeks, pour out some of the brine, add some cold water and let them set in the refrigerator for a few days.

Granite Ware 21.5-qt. Covered Canner This 21½-quart enameled steel pot with lid and wire rack is 14" in diameter and 12½" high with its lid on. It's the traditional favorite for making jams, jellies, preserves, and marmalades. It has a jar capacity of 7 quarts, 7 pints, 7-12oz jelly jars, 7 half pints or 7-4oz jelly jars. Without its rack, this old-fashioned, time-honored porcelain-on-steel pot becomes a perfect preserving kettle for large recipes.

Canning Jars (Glass) Quart Wide Mouth - 12/1Qt. Wide Mouth Glass Jars: GR

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