Anne’s Pickled Carrots

Happy Labor Day everyone!  I hope that everyone is enjoying their day off. I sure am! All of last week was extremely hot and sticky  so I was looking forward to catching one last weekend of sun by the pool but surprise… fall arrived on Saturday morning with it’s crisp air and strong winds.

What does the Cherry Pie do on a crisp fall long weekend? Can you guess? Cooking! Are you surprised!!! What better way to celebrate fall then by canning up some of the summer’s harvest! Here goes for my very first try at pickling! I thought I’d start with something easy yet delicious! This is my sister Anne’s  recipe.

-    1 lb carrots
-    1 ½ cups white vinegar
-    ½ cup water
-    1 cup sugar
-    3 tbsp mixed pickling spice
-    3 cloves of garlic per jar

- Wash and scrape carrots. I had small fresh garden carrots so I didn’t even peel them. I just washed them carefully.
- Cut the carrots into sticks.
- Cook carrots in salted boiling water for 3-5 minutes until crispy.
- In a pot, combine the water, vinegar, sugar and pickling spice and bring to a boil.
- Place the garlic and carrots into a hot sterilized jar. ( I sterilized my jars by placing them a hot oven for about 10 minutes).
- Pour pickling liquid over the carrots in the jar and seal.

This was my very first experience pickling experience. I was a little scared by the whole jar sterilization process but I must admit this it went very well and was a lot easier then I had expected. I would recommend being two people for the jarring process. I did all of this with my mom. As I filled the hot jars with the veg, she poured in the pickling liquid and sealed the jars.