Cucumber pickles

I had a bag of cucumbers in the fridge and decided to have a go at making a cucumber pickle.  In times past I have not been much of a fan of pickled food, finding it overwhelmingly vinegary, but of late i have had some pickles with other flavours that compliment the vinegar which have swayed my thinking about pickling.  So much so that I got a recipe book out of the library called Pickles! (after I made my first batch today).

I do not profess to know much about pickling and what I wanted this time round was an easy recipe I could pretty much throw in a jar and leave for a few weeks.  I couldnt really find anything to match that requirement so I decided to experiment instead.  Uh oh.  I cut up my lebanese cucumbers into rounds about 4 mm thick.  I crammed these into jars.  I also cut up some carrot sticks which I stuck in with some of the jars.  I then spinkled a few peppercorns on top of each jar, about a teaspoon of mustard seeds and then poured over a warmed vinegar mixture.  For the mixture I heated 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of vinegar (a mixture of white and apple cider vinegar) and a teaspoon of salt.  I boiled this briefly then let it cool a bit (as my jars were cold).  When cooled but still warm I poured the vinegar mixture over the cucumbers in the jars, releasing any air bubbles before sealing. 

Then I put the jars in the Kensington preserver, bought it to the boil and processed the bottles for 15 minutes.  The results look yummy.  I am now going to store them in a cool dark place for a few weeks and will sample early to mid March and report results...... fingers crossed.