Recipe(tried): Pickles in a Bucket

Elly,

I have made this recipe for the last few years and it goes over very well with everyone:

Pickles in a Bucket

4 cups sugar (white,granulated)
2 cups Extra Strength White Vinegar (I always use Heinz)
2 Tbsp pickling salt
1 tsp tumeric
2 tsp celery seed
2 tsp mustard seed
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5 (more or less, depending on size) Cucumbers with peel -- thinly sliced
4 or 5 Garlic cloves, sliced (or more, if you love garlic -- I use 10!!!)
1 Large Spanish onion, sliced
1 Large red bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips *
1 Large green bell pepper, seeded and sliced into strips *
(*I have, in the past, purchased yellow and purple bell peppers, when available, and mixed them in with the red and green -- I usually make 2 buckets, so I use 1/2 a large pepper of each of the four colours, when available! This makes for very colourful pickles!!!)

Mix first set of ingredients in a 4-quart ice cream bucket. Mix very well.

Add the garlic, pepper strips, and sliced onion. Add the cucumbers to fill the bucket up to the level of the liquid. Let stand a few hours, then stir. Add more cucumber slices to fill up to level of liquid again. Cover. Serve after one month. You can store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months. Yield: 2 1/2 quarts of pickles.

My mother-in-law puts her pickles (along with the brine) into jars after they have sat in the brine for a month or more. That just frees up space in the refrigerator, if you do not have room for the pickle bucket to sit there indefinitely. We have an extra refrigerator, so we leave ours in the bucket (and they never last 6 months!!!)