Recipe: Sweet Cherry Dills (pickles - canning recipes)

CHERRY DILLS
rec.food.cooking/Katie E. Green/1995

This is my grandmother's own recipe for Cherry Dill Pickles. Here in Washington State, turn of the century there were not a lot of grape vineyards. Most of the crisp recipes call for placing a grape leaf in the jar to add crispness to the pickles. My grandmother improvised and found that the leaves from her cherry tree worked just as well, if not better. Makes a wonderful, crunchy pickle.

Select medium cukes.

Put layer of dill in bottom of medium crock.
Then a layer of cukes.
Next, a layer of cherry leaves (pesticide free).

Keep alternating to the top of the crock.
On the very top, put leaves and dill.

Over all, pour brine made with:
1 cup salt and 6 quarts water

Let stand for 2 weeks.

After this brining period, wash pickles and dry.
Cut into desired chunks.
Put pickles in sterilized jars.

Make syrup:
4 cups vinegar
8 cups sugar
1 ounce mixed whole spices

Bring this mixture to a boil.
Pour boiling syrup over pickles; seal jars.

Process in boiling water bath - pints 10 minutes, quarts 15 minutes.