Vintage Thingie Thursday: Vintage Bread and Butter Pickles Recipe

Welcome everyone to Vintage Thingies Thursday. If you have a love for vintage things, well....you have come to the right place. We have a really good time each and every week!!!
If you are new to this party, please take the time to read and follow the instructions for participating in Vintage Thingies Thursday, click HERE. I try and keep things fairly simple, so please make sure you follow the instructions. Please only ONE link per week. Lastly, if you link in, LINK back to my blog, so everyone can see all of the vintage goodies on display that day. If you don't link back here, they won't know who to visit......thanks so much.

I had several friends comment on facebook this week for my canning recipes I have been using. You see, when you have lots of vines that are loaded with things that look like this.....

You have to make a decision to not let them go to waste and start canning. Honestly, it was a good excuse to put my hubby to work.....he sliced and sliced until he got a brilliant idea and starting using the food processor....he proclaims now, he will never chop again!

I was able to snap this photo before he got so smart!!! If you ever want to have a couple of extra hands in the kitchen, husband really chop vegetables pretty well....try it sometime!!

Here is a recipe that was in a very old cookbook I picked up an estate sale a few years ago....very easy and very good!!!

Bread and Butter Pickles

3 pounds medium size cucumbers
2 medium white onions, sliced thin
1/2  large red pepper, washed, seeded and chopped
2  Tablespoons canning salt
1  1/4 C. sugar
1 1/4  C. cider vinegar


1 1/2  teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/8 teaspoon  ground cloves


Wash cucumbers and cut off  both ends.  Slice cucumbers as thin as possible. A food processor works great, or slice by hand. Next,  layer cucumbers, onions, peppers and salt in a bowl. Cover and let stand for 1 hour. Drain cucumbers and onions and peppers and rinse in cold water.


Next: Combine vinegar, sugar and spices in large none reactive pot and bring to a boil. Add cucumbers, onions and peppers to pot and heat, but do not boil. Remove from heat. Pack pickles into clean jars, leaving 1/2" head space. Wipe jar rims. Seal. Process 5 minutes in a boiling water bath. Makes 4 pints

I doubled this recipe and made 8 pints. I'd say I had about 10-14 cucumbers ranging from mid size to a few large ones. I had two bowls full of sliced cucumbers, onions and peppers. I know it is hard to gauge how much will make from the cucumbers you have, but this is as close as I can get to what we used. They are sliced very thin, not thick.


We also have canned two batches of jalapeno peppers, and I will be canning more sweet pickles and peppers this weekend. I can hardly believe we have had enough peppers to can so many already...the vines are FULL of peppers...so I have lots to do!! I am also making dill pickles from a vintage recipe too! I am thinking I will be canning all day on Sunday, as I am over run with vegetables this year. 

If i decide to try something is must be easy and quick as I start doubting myself if it is not that way. I will see how it goes and post that recipe next week on the dill pickles  and show you how it is done....step by step so if you want to try it, that way you can follow along.

Here are the peppers from the first batch we canned. I used a great recipe from a fellow vintage thingie thursday participant, Potholes and Pantyhose. You can find her step by step recipe HERE....very easy!!!


And to keep with the rules....here is a vintage canning jar......

......the only thing canned in these jars are vintage buttons!! Now that is one easy canning job here folks...fill, close the lid, sit on a shelf and done!!!


Happy Vintage Thingie Thursday!!! If you try the pickle recipe, I'd love to hear how it went!! 

Diet: No Longer A Four Letter Word....now it is a 15 letter phrase!

It seems the new "phrase" for losing weight is "It's not a diet, it is a l-i-f-e-s-t-y-l-e C-h-a-n-g-e"
....Well first off...I was happy with my lifestyle, thank you very much. I just want to lose a few pounds.


This is my mood today.....chocolate, a taco, a hamburger, a Pepsi or some Halloween candy would make me feel a lot better....just sayin'.

But, I AM NOT on a DIET...NOPE....it is a Lifestyle Change....Yippy... makes me feel better.....NOT!

Garden Bounty: Easy Refrigerator Pickles

Our garden this year has produced more cucumbers than we could possibly eat...and all at once. I don't know if it has anything to do with the large amount of rain we have had this spring or the cooler temperatures we have had up until recently that caused this surplus of cucumbers. Needless to say, I was not about to let them go to waste. In a day or two, all the ones I used for the following recipe will be replaced when I pick the new batch that will be ready for picking......

Today, I made refrigerator pickles. With a little slicing, mixing and pouring, I was able to make 10 quarts of pickles. Below, is a short tutorial and believe me when I say it was easy-peasy.

You will need these guys: fresh cucumbers, onion, minced garlic, mustard seeds, ground Turmeric, Celery seed, sugar, vinegar, sea salt, crushed red pepper optional.

I boiled my clean jars and lids to sterilize them, set aside.

Next, thinly slice cucumbers and onions.

Pack jars with cucumbers and onion in a layering pattern, alternating veggies. Add your minced garlic to each jar. If you would like to add crushed red pepper flakes, add to jars now.

Look how pretty these guys look. Just waiting for the good stuff to be poured in.

You can use less onion if you are not a fan of the onions. I would however, not omit them all together. They add a wonderful flavor to the pickles.

In a large pan, mix vinegar, sugar, salt and spices and bring to a boil. Make sure all the sugars dissolve well. Turn off stove and let sit a few minutes.

Pour hot mixture into jars. I do not fill them all the way up, a little over 3/4 full is good. You can turn upside down in the refrigerator if need be.

Look how pretty these look. I put about a teaspoon of red pepper flakes in a few of the jars. The one above shows ones with the pepper. It does not make them too hot, just kicked up a bit. Good. Trust me. Steve likes his kicked up a bit...makes him feel special.

Wipe off all lids, and jars with a damp towel. They are now ready to transfer to the refrigerator.

Place jars in refrigerator. You can eat these as quickly as 24 hours after they sit up in the refrigerator, but I like to wait about a week. Store in refrigerator for up to six months. But,I am here to tell you this...... I promise you, they won't last that long.

I made 10 quarts of pickles and made six batches of the syrup to accommodate the amount of cucumbers I had. You can make as little or as large a batch of pickles you would like, just adjust the recipe accordingly. This recipe was adapted from a vintage refrigerator pickle recipe I found in a vintage cookbook.

Easy Refrigerator Pickles:

6 cups thinly sliced cucumbers

2 cups thinly sliced onions

1 1/2 cups sugar,

1 1/2 cups vinegar

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp mustard seed

1/2 tsp celery seed

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

3/4 tsp. of minced garlic

crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

2 quart sized jars

In a glass quart jar alternate layers of sliced cucumbers and onions. Add minced garlic to each jar, if using crushed red pepper, add also. In a medium saucepan combine sugar, vinegar, salt, mustard seed, celery seed and ground turmeric. Bring to a boil, stirring just till sugar is dissolved. Pour vinegar mixture on top of cucumbers/onion mixture, cool slightly. Cover tightly shaking jar to incorporate the mixture, and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before serving. Store up to 6 months in refrigerator.

If your garden has taken off this year, with lots of veggies to harvest, why not make a couple of batches of these easy pickles. Keep them for yourself, or give some away....I am sure you would have not trouble finding takers on homemade fresh, crisp, yummy pickles straight from your kitchen. I know it is not difficult around here to find a taker or two, they will be lined up at my door as soon as they read pickles were made.....trust me!! What do you think? Care to give it a try??

Will Work for Treats!

Many of you left comments last week when I showed you my garden snapshots that you have a problem with squirrels in your gardens eating your vegetables before you can even pick them off the vine.

I have found a simple solution........Dora is the hunter....and she has an ever watchful eye on the backyard. This year, she has decided to take it upon her self to rid the garden of anything that moves....literally. She lays at the back glass door most of the day...watching....eager to bound out of the doggie door to scare away birds and squirrels. And to be honest...she is doing a rather good job of that too.


So while we are enjoying an abundance of these goodies this summer....

Dora says she does not mind working for a few small treats! After all, it really is the thrill of the hunt...no matter whether you catch anything or not!

And as for these critters....they are staying high in the treetops or the neighbors tree house......*sign* life is good!

Vegetable Gardening....How Sweet it is!

I spent the afternoon in the garden.....working and playing with my camera. The weather here has been perfect for gardening and the fair amount of rain we have had this spring has been great for our garden.

I picked green beans off the vines today, and picked summer squash and acorn squash. Also found a zucchini and a cucumber wanting to be picked and turned into something wonderful to put on the table.

We have cantaloupe and tomatoes and lots more cucumbers and bell peppers but they are just tempting me on the vines....not ready to pick just yet.

The weather forecast is for possible triple digits over the weekend....that makes me sad, because when the temperatures rise around here in the summer, the gardens tend to be over stressed and that is the end of the producing season. Hopefully, I can harvest a little more goodies before that happens.

Hope you enjoyed a peek into my small backyard garden...and really....you don't need a lot of space to grow your own fresh vegetables....all it takes is a sunny spot, good soil and lots of tender loving care. And let me say, there is nothing like the taste of fresh vegetables served to your family, and the pride in knowing they came right our of your own little garden.
~Good Stuff.