Dilly Beans

I think I got 'em all. this time!!

I really wanted to make good use of my day off today, so I picked the last of the beans this morning.
I decided to use 'em up in a batch of Dilly Beans.

So, I got out my trusty Ball Blue Book of preserving food. I bought this book from WalMart about 4 years ago, when we first moved out here.




On page 54 is the recipe for making Dilly Beans. I've had these before, store bought though, and just LOVED them. So, this is my first shot at making my own batch.



I went down to the basement and found a box of jars that I had picked up at a yard sale a few years ago. To my surprise, they were not all Ball jars. Some were Marie's dressing jars, one looked like a regular may jar, a couple other types were in there as well. So, I picked out the ones I wanted and got them right into the dishwasher.

While I was downstairs I grabbed my canning cauldron. My Dad gave me this after we moved also, he thought I'd get far more use out of it than he did. He gave it to me an a trash bag, so that is how I store it. Right there in a black trash bag. It actually is very nice, as it keeps off all the dirt and all that dry wall dust that collected when Charlie was doing the bathroom down here. So, I pulled it out and it was sparkling clean!

So, I filled her up and got her right onto the stove, cuz that is the longest task, heating up that pot. Then I got to cleaning and snipping my beans. Boiled my water, vinegar and salts and added a some pickling spices I had in the spice basket. I packed four jars, sprinkled in some cayenne pepper. I did not have cloves as called for, so I dropped in a teaspoon of minced garlic. No dill heads at my house, so I just used the dry dill I had. I know that this will make them a bit messy when we finally pull them out, but I'm pretty messy anyway.

After 10 minutes of processing, here they are on the counter to cool.