anti-recipe #52 pickled three bean salad

So. Canning is a huge part of summer at the farm. This year we havent had much canning really, well, none at all, until this week that is. Because now it is "Harvest Time" and something about the family lineage, all of those Norwegians and Swedes pioneering on the plains, well, it kicks us into full on canning/preserving-for-the-winter mode. We become these unstoppable canning-at-10pm freaks.

For a day or two at least.

HA.

In any case. My mom and sister and I made three bean salad the other day. MANY MANY jars of three bean salad. In fact, one might say TOO many but, that would go against our nature. To Can Is To Provide For Your Family!!

This pickled bean salad is really great and really you can throw anything into this kind of brine. We did beans from the garden, yellow and green, and pinto beans (precooked). But then you can put lots of other things in - sliced up red and yellow peppers, for color, onion or garlic. Or you could do full on pickled vegetables. Cauliflower and peppers and beets and carrots and turnips and anything else leftover in the garden.

My mom, being a prepared-recipe type of cook, got out her Bell Canning Cookbook and found the proper ingredients (even going so far as to go to the store to buy the missing ingredients!! Amazing!) But the "throw-in-leftover-vegetables-from-the-garden" element is why I deem this an "anti-recipe." Sure you need to have the right vinegar to water ratio in the brine but the seasoning and veggie combo possibilities are endless.

All that said. I did very little to contribute to this effort. I think I sliced the peppers.

So. Here are pictures of my sister and mother canning. HA.

And mmmmmm....is it good...sweet, tangy, crunchy. And the longer it sits the better it gets!


the end of the beans from the garden

beans, pepper, onion and pinto bean mixture



 

so here is the bean and pepper and onion mixture, cooking away.
the green/yellow beans need to be just partially cooked.



then you drain the bean mixture and ladle it into hot
canning jars. then you add the pickling brine. you
can see the proper ratio of everything below. basically
vinegar, sugar, water and seasonings.



here is the recipe my mom follows



here is the other variation. YUM. apple cider vinegar!

then you can it in a hot water bath for 20 minutes or so

then you drink tea.

half of the baby cousin brigade. FOUR babies born into the family this year!

this walking girl is mainly why i didnt participate
here she is walking to me like "THERE you
are. WHY ARENT YOU HOLDING ME??"

hold me mama. hold me.

you put me DOWN??? HOW DARE YOU!!

the finished jars. pretty right?? mmmm....