Bread and Butter, Hamburger Dill and Dill Pickles

The calendar has reached October, and for us that has meant that we've toned down our canning efforts. But we were busy shoring up our winter stock of garden-grown food nearly every weekend in July and August. And one ingredient that we had a ton of was cucumbers, pickling cucumbers in particular.

Pickle harvest from West Allis Farmers Market

When we were deciding how to preserve those cucumbers for the winter, a few thoughts popped to mind. Obviously, we wanted to make some pickle spears. Melissa really wanted some hamburger pickles and I wanted some bread and butter pickles. We consulted with our Ball canning books and magazines to find appropriate recipes.

Crinkle-cut cucumbers

Our yield:

• 14 pints of hamburger pickles
• 6 pints and 1 quart of bread and butter pickles
• 6 quarts of dill spears
• 4 quarts of kosher dills
• 2 pints and 1 half-pint of pickles

And that isn't counting the canned pickles we've already given away plus the other cucumbers we used fresh and didn't can.

This past weekend we popped open a couple of our hamburger pickles, dredged them in buttermilk with a little bit of hot sauce, and dipped them in a cornmeal and flour mixture. Then we fried them. Frickles. With some ranch dipping sauce, of course.

How do you like your pickles?