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Introducing...

Sean Patrick McCarthy. Born Friday, November 18th at 7:29am. 7lbs. 3 oz. and 20 1/2 in. long. Our little Sean has a full head of red hair. You bet his big sister, Katie, was thrilled about his hair color! Here's a few pictures for now.

What Have We Been Up To?

Well, I've been growing a baby. I know I haven't posted since July. Those pickles have been brining since then and can't wait to have them for Thanksgiving. So just been busy with life, kids, hubby, house, and...oh yeah...growing a baby for the last 37 weeks. Only 2 more weeks left until my c-section. We can't wait! We are all excited! So...we are still here. I am sure I will make up for what I haven't posted with all the new baby news. Just wait.

From Cucumbers to Pickles

This is our little cucumber patch. We are growing the "muncher" variety. Burpless.

One late afternoon, we picked 10 cucumbers at one time. 10! There are only so many cucumbers you can eat before they start to get rubbery and soft. You can't freeze them. You can't dry them. So on a whim, at about 7 o'clock at night, we decided to break from our "freezer only preserving" (just having made a batch of boysenberry jam a few days before) and bite the bullet and actually, for real, pickle these babies.

We didn't have a canning pot, or pickling salt. I had 3 new wide-mouth jars on hand, but when Mike went out to get a canning pot and the salt, he also picked up a dozen wide-mouth quart jars. Needless to say, the three I had on hand were just right for the 10 cucumbers. We decided to cut them into spears, since they were just the right size. One tip: stuff 'em in real tight.

Dill, of course. We have this dilemma in our house. I love dill. My husband loves sweet. My kids...don't care because they don't eat 'em...yet. But since I allowed my husband to shoot the photos and he got my pregger belly in the pics, I won with dill...and garlic!

Stuff the dill, flowers and stems, into the jars. These are dill, so don't skimp on the dill!

Whole garlic cloves, peeled, have been added at this point. 2 cloves for each jar. I guess I should mention at this point that the brine has been simmering away already. Water, white vinegar, and pickling salt. That's it. That's the brine.

Pour the brine into the jars, using a wide-mouth funnel is very helpful. Just fill up the jars and leave a 1/2 inch space at the top. Then seal them up with the lids and rings. I do this part because if I let my husband do it, he would probably end up tightening too tight and break the top of the jar off. Did I ever tell you about the time he put up the garage door opener and sheared a bolt right off the thing? Well, that's another story.

Sitting pretty in the water bath. Put the jars on the rack. Very important, the rack. Set them in the water. Bring this giant pot to a boil and then let it boil for 15 minutes. Some say 5; some say 10. I was being cautious so I did 15.
You will see them start to turn from the bright green, fresh looking color to this. What kind of green would you call that? But it looks like pickles to me!The whole process from start to finish to about 2 hours. Enough time for us to be done and sit down to watch the Bachelorette. 20 minutes after they came out of the water bath, all 3 lids popped. Let me tell you, when you "can," you just sit and pray for those lids to pop. And when they did...it was like angels singing in my kitchen. And then my husband and I did a high-5.

Salt. Pink Salt.

Do yourself a favor and pick this up. I used it in some muffins I recently made. You can taste it. I promise. You use it just as you would regular salt, but Pink Salt is purer and higher in mineral content. The picture doesn't do the color justice. It is much more pink in person. Sprinkle some on top of brownies. Yum. Or even better, brownies drizzled with caramel and then sprinkle some pink salt on top...heaven. Sprinkle some on top of vanilla ice cream. Double Yum!

And this has nothing to do with salt, but I picked up some more of these at the same time because I was out of them. Freshly grated nutmeg ain't got nothing on the ground up stuff. Do yourself another favor and get some, too. I always add just a pinch to my banana bread and it makes your palette think, "what is that hint of yumminess?" You can also add it to eggs. Yes, eggs. Especially omelet-ly type egg dishes. My favorite is a quinoa and feta egg scramble. But that's for another post.